For my final blog, I would like to reflect back on my major project of this semester: exploring teacher identity.
First, I would like to ask you, the reader, to actually think of your favorite teacher. Whether this person was your kindergarten teacher, your high school teacher, or a college professor, pick one. What made them a good teacher?
Reflect.
Did you like them because of the class they taught?
Was it their personality?
Do you think that this teacher had the same identity inside the class as they did in the “real world”?
When this semester began, I was applying to Teach for America and was extremely enthusiastic about the idea of teaching. I had always sort of idolized my high school teachers and wished that I could bring the same inspiration to others in the future. My high school chemistry teacher, Mrs. Jones, was so enthusiastic about chemistry that I just couldn’t help myself from pursuing that subject in college. My favorite teacher was Mrs. Fifer. Although I hated English in high school and believed that AP English Composition didn’t help me learn how to become a better writer, when I took Mrs. Fifer’s college writing class, I felt like she cared. Unlike with Mrs. Jones’s class, I thought that the material in Mrs. Fifer’s class was boring. I hated writing. Although they present very different experiences, I would like to share what I learned from both of these teachers, and discuss their identities a little as well. Let me begin:
Despite hating English classes in high school, I loved going to Mrs. Fifer’s class. Although her jokes didn’t often work, Mrs. Fifer tried to be funny. Most of the time, she was strict. But, despite her stern personality, which clashed with my introversion, I respected her. When I got a B on a paper (something unheard of for me in high school), I went after school to ask what I did wrong. Rather than telling me a blatant, “I just thought it was a B paper,” like past teachers had told me (no joke), she asked me to sit down and discuss the paper. She asked me what grade I thought I deserved and why I thought that. Then, she gave me her own comments and asked for my response to those comments. For a one page paper, I received more feedback than I had in years. Why dedicate so much time to me? I believe she dedicated so much time because she truly cared. I think she let more of her true self into the classroom than any other teacher I had ever known. Of course, she did put on a very domineering self, what Hochschild would call a false self (where a false self is a presented identity that differs from the person’s true identity or true self. The false self appropriately deals with the demands of situation, where the true self might otherwise be taken advantage of or would conform to the goals of the situation rather than to that person’s own interests. The false self is protective).
In my opinion, unlike Mrs. Fifer, other teachers presented a different false self in the classroom: one that society expected them to have, or one that they felt protected them best. Some teachers didn’t really care. Some didn’t think that the class was worth their time, it was just a job, something that paid the electric bill. Some took the identity that society or their families told them to: don’t take it personal, they’re high schoolers, it’s not worth your time. These false selves were not enthusiastic. The people who employed these selves stayed at their jobs because they were stuck, unable to get out of the profession.
Although false selves can be ineffective for students when teachers don’t really care, even those who don’t really care can present effective false selves. For example, when I went back to see Mrs. Jones, she was disappointed to hear that I was pursuing chemistry. Although she pretended in class to be enthusiastic, her front was just to help students succeed. “What are you going to do with your degree? There’s no future in chemistry: have you thought about chemical engineering? The only thing you can do with chemistry is teach, and you definitely don’t want to be a teacher.” I was shocked to hear this. “Why did you teach me to love the subject so much if you hate it yourself?” I thought. She did it because she wanted students to succeed. Perhaps when she entered high school teaching, she thought it would be a great career. But, she didn’t end up liking the profession. However, she didn’t let that get in the way of helping her students succeed. She acted enthusiastic, made class interesting, did presentations. In my opinion, she performed a ton of emotion work (faking one’s emotions to elicit an appropriate response/effect). Some of you may be upset that Mrs. Jones wasn’t true to her students. Although I wish she would have been able to switch careers and find something she loved more, I respect her for presenting an enthusiastic false self.
The moral of my whole blog, from my perspective, is no matter what profession you choose to pursue, take all means necessary to make sure that you really love it first. Through all of high school, I thought that teachers were the most amazing people in the world. Even though my teachers didn’t love their jobs in the long run, I really respect the ways that they tried to help me through my struggles. However, do you really want to enter a profession where you don’t love what you’re doing? Mrs. Jones loved it when past students visited her and told her that she was amazing, but she didn’t really like what she actually did.
I know so many college students who want to become doctors because they know that physicians make good money. Others, like me, may have thought that teaching would be a fun career. For some students, they do everything they can short of getting the diploma to find out more about their profession. Others just read websites about the career. I still am not 100% sure what I want to do, but I have started shadowing physicians, I volunteer at a hospice, and work in a doctor’s office. Although these experiences have given me a glimpse into medicine, I still feel the need to explore it more. Therefore, I am taking a year off to explore my options more thoroughly. It’s nice to go into a profession to help others, and although you may be able to effectively “fake it” like Mrs. Jones did, you won’t feel the same satisfaction as others do. Find a job that correlates the best with who you are, and then the false selves you present will lie more congruent with your true self, and that will be healthy for all involved….or, at least that’s what I think.
I think I learned more in this class about the writing process and about myself than any other class I have taken. It was great getting to meet everyone & good luck in finding a career where you find that your true self and false self agree, rather than clash. I’m still on the journey and I hope that my words (although from one of your peers and not a wiser elder) help you in your journey as well.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Improving my identity as a writer...
Who am I today?
In my first blog, I was a terrified science student. I pretended like I was successful, and hid behind the false image of a successful student who had many job and volunteer experiences. Also, my identity at that time was largely tied up in high school; in my first blog, I wrote about the clubs I was in during high school, where I grew up, and so on. And although I had just received my concentration release and knew I was almost to graduation, I didn’t feel that “college student” was a large part of my identity. This semester I took smaller classes, led two study groups, and worked in a lab. Now, I feel like I have become more of a scientist and college student, although I still strongly associate with my home life. I feel like a beginning expert in the field of biochemistry, rather than just a student taking introductory classes because they are required. And through exploring the Teach for America program and other career paths, I feel like I am more confident in my decision to pursue medicine. Although I wasn’t accepted into Teach for America, I feel like I learned a lot about the interview process, the “real world,” and my wants and interests. Overall, I feel like I have made more changes in my self-image than during this semester than any other, and am appreciative for the successes and failures I have experienced.
In evaluating my first blog and my identity as a writer, my writer identity was somewhat grim. In that blog, I tried to put all of my accomplishments out on the table with the hope that my English teacher and English class would see that I was a hard worker, even if I wasn’t a good writer.
Before this class, I always thought that I was a mediocre writer. Although I still believe that I am better at science and math than English, I definitely believe that I have improved my writing. Before this class, I often got good grades on writing assignments in other classes by just following the rubric. Now, I understand the value of analyzing each rhetorical move I make. Rather than just using a quote because it looks good, I try to evaluate if it will elicit the effect I think it will have in the reader, and whether that effect is conducive to the my argument.
When I started writing my blogs, I had two audiences in mind: my teacher and myself. When I wrote my blogs, I wanted to impress Brett, so I added statistics, quoted a few sources, and tried to integrate my ideas. At other times, I felt like the blog was a space to just get my ideas out of my mind and on paper so I could clarify what I was thinking. At the start of the semester, I had no intentions of appealing to my classmates or to my readers; I just wanted a good grade. I think that my mindset has changed. Now, when I write a paper or a blog, I think more thoroughly about who will be reading it (although occasionally my blogs are mostly for reflection and personal interest). Rather than just delving into my argument, I give background information. For example, if I want to discuss how Hochschild’s theory applies to teachers, I now realize that the audience may not even know what Hochschild’s theory is. Therefore, I explain background information before making my argument. Also, when I persuade, I feel like I have to make my audience identify with my general opinions or find a common ground to relate to them and make them feel comfortable. As Maurice Charland explains, you must “constitute” your audience by hailing them and making them comfortable with the perspective you are coming from. Unless you get your audience to identify with what you are arguing, you will never be able to motivate them to action or even agree with you on an issue.
Also, when I started writing in this class, I always felt like writing was a required task, not something that I could enjoy or that had many everyday uses. I also didn’t think that writing was worth much time and that writing papers actually made me more confused. Now, I feel like writing is important in my life both in and outside the classroom. Writing doesn’t cloud my mind; it shows me what I am thinking, even if what I’m thinking is a little cloudy and convoluted. Then, by examining what I am thinking on paper, I am better able to reflect on my thoughts and realize which thoughts are genuinely useful and logical and which are worthy of disposal. When I feel stressed about family affairs or about a bad night at hospice, writing lets me get my emotions out. Writing allows me to think practically about what decisions I make in life and which one are for the best and which are for the worse. Writing is not just something I do in class; it is something I can confidently do in life.
In my first blog, I was a terrified science student. I pretended like I was successful, and hid behind the false image of a successful student who had many job and volunteer experiences. Also, my identity at that time was largely tied up in high school; in my first blog, I wrote about the clubs I was in during high school, where I grew up, and so on. And although I had just received my concentration release and knew I was almost to graduation, I didn’t feel that “college student” was a large part of my identity. This semester I took smaller classes, led two study groups, and worked in a lab. Now, I feel like I have become more of a scientist and college student, although I still strongly associate with my home life. I feel like a beginning expert in the field of biochemistry, rather than just a student taking introductory classes because they are required. And through exploring the Teach for America program and other career paths, I feel like I am more confident in my decision to pursue medicine. Although I wasn’t accepted into Teach for America, I feel like I learned a lot about the interview process, the “real world,” and my wants and interests. Overall, I feel like I have made more changes in my self-image than during this semester than any other, and am appreciative for the successes and failures I have experienced.
In evaluating my first blog and my identity as a writer, my writer identity was somewhat grim. In that blog, I tried to put all of my accomplishments out on the table with the hope that my English teacher and English class would see that I was a hard worker, even if I wasn’t a good writer.
Before this class, I always thought that I was a mediocre writer. Although I still believe that I am better at science and math than English, I definitely believe that I have improved my writing. Before this class, I often got good grades on writing assignments in other classes by just following the rubric. Now, I understand the value of analyzing each rhetorical move I make. Rather than just using a quote because it looks good, I try to evaluate if it will elicit the effect I think it will have in the reader, and whether that effect is conducive to the my argument.
When I started writing my blogs, I had two audiences in mind: my teacher and myself. When I wrote my blogs, I wanted to impress Brett, so I added statistics, quoted a few sources, and tried to integrate my ideas. At other times, I felt like the blog was a space to just get my ideas out of my mind and on paper so I could clarify what I was thinking. At the start of the semester, I had no intentions of appealing to my classmates or to my readers; I just wanted a good grade. I think that my mindset has changed. Now, when I write a paper or a blog, I think more thoroughly about who will be reading it (although occasionally my blogs are mostly for reflection and personal interest). Rather than just delving into my argument, I give background information. For example, if I want to discuss how Hochschild’s theory applies to teachers, I now realize that the audience may not even know what Hochschild’s theory is. Therefore, I explain background information before making my argument. Also, when I persuade, I feel like I have to make my audience identify with my general opinions or find a common ground to relate to them and make them feel comfortable. As Maurice Charland explains, you must “constitute” your audience by hailing them and making them comfortable with the perspective you are coming from. Unless you get your audience to identify with what you are arguing, you will never be able to motivate them to action or even agree with you on an issue.
Also, when I started writing in this class, I always felt like writing was a required task, not something that I could enjoy or that had many everyday uses. I also didn’t think that writing was worth much time and that writing papers actually made me more confused. Now, I feel like writing is important in my life both in and outside the classroom. Writing doesn’t cloud my mind; it shows me what I am thinking, even if what I’m thinking is a little cloudy and convoluted. Then, by examining what I am thinking on paper, I am better able to reflect on my thoughts and realize which thoughts are genuinely useful and logical and which are worthy of disposal. When I feel stressed about family affairs or about a bad night at hospice, writing lets me get my emotions out. Writing allows me to think practically about what decisions I make in life and which one are for the best and which are for the worse. Writing is not just something I do in class; it is something I can confidently do in life.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Primary and Secondary False Identities?
Yesterday in English 225.021, I gave my presentation on the importance of educating teachers about emotion management techniques to explain how teachers can become emotionally invested in their classrooms but not to a point where they become overwhelmed. I planned out nearly every single detail of this presentation, followed the guidelines in the textbook, and even looked at online resources to find out what experts say is the best way to make a powerpoint presentation. I tried to appeal to pathos, ethos, logos. I tried to make the slides have the barebone facts and fill in the gaps through my speech, trying to make the audience more engaged. Since I was pretending like I was presenting to school administrators, I tried to appeal to ethos by wearing a suit. I used clips, pictures, statistics, and expert opinion. I even spent a significant amount of time working on a catchy title for the presentation/program I presented (CARE: Coaching Appropriate Reactive Emotions), something I rarely worry about in my writing. Therefore, from a technical standpoint, I feel like I didn't everything I should have. However, despite my classmates trying to convince me that I did a good job, I am wary. When I spoke, I got tongue-tied in quite a few places and forgot to add in details that would have appealed to the audience. And, despite forgetting to add in details, I fell behind and had to rush at the end of the presentation to meet the time allotment (a problem I didn't experience while practicing).
Why is it that when I practice alone or in front of friends and family I can think clearly, but when I speak in front of a group of people I get tongue tied and blank out? Perhaps one contributing factor can be found by using, and adapting Hochschild's idea of identity. According to Arlie Hochschild, we have a true identity and many false identities. The true identity has its own feelings and thoughts which can be exposed only when completely uninhibited, a situation which may never FULLY happen. Although we often say that we have emotions deep within us that represent what we are "really" feeling, even then those emotions may not be coming from our true identity but from the demands of society and the situation. Hochschild says that we have many false identities we present, depending on the demands of the situation. You may be an extrovert, a confident student, a optimistic brother, a family man, a pessimistic hater, a passionate lover, or adopt any other identity depending on what is appropriate to that situation; however, these presented identites are not who you really are. Hochschild says that these identities are necessary for us to get on in life, and to protect our true identity from being injured. However, despite the attempts to protect the true self, the true self may become inaccessible or lost as we present so many false identities that we don't really know who we are.
I have been studying Hochshild's identity theory and emotions in teacher education all semester, so I felt well versed on the topic of emotion training (or the lack thereof) in teacher education. However, I rarely applied this identity theory to myself. Maybe I have found a link by evaluating my speaking abilities...you tell me:
When we speak in front of anyone, even without Hochschild's identity theory, I think most people would agree that we are "not ourselves." For me, I spoke in front of two different audiences: my family/friends and my classmates/teacher. When I spoke in front of both groups, the main surface identity, or what I will refer to hereforth as my primary false identity, I was trying to portray was one in the same (that of a representative for a teacher education program). However, there was another false identity, a secondary false identity, inherent in the presentation: who I, James, actually am to those people. To my friends and family, I am a companion, a friend, someone who they (generally) associate with by choice. In the family situation, I feel that the false self I portray more closely resembles my true self. I feel uninhibited and comfortable with who I am at home. In such a situation, I don't have to be an intelligent academic because I know that these people will not judge me. However, to my teacher and classmates, I am an academic and the class is obligated to deal with me. Unlike the James identity I present to my family, the identity of "academic" is not one I am comfortable with. Of course I do well in school, but I am just a student, not an expert. Thus in the classroom case, my secondary false identity of academic is one I am less comfortable with and is more disconnected from what I believe to be my true identity.
When giving the CARE presentation, I was successful at home but stumbled in class. But, from a surface level, it seems that I was presenting the same identity in both situations, the false professional identity of CARE representative. However, this false identity of CARE representative/speaker must coexist with the other secondary false identity I must present. In front of my family, my secondary false identity was one I was comfortable with. In class, I was not comfortable with the secondary false identity of academic. Therefore, I believe that perhaps one reason why I was successful at home but not at school was because of the comfort level with the identity I present. Depending on how comfortable I am with that second identity, and whether it lies congruent with or antiparallel to the first false identity determines the effectiveness of the execution of the primary false identity.
My take on false identities may not be true, but I think it is intriguing to some extent. From the explanations of Hochschild's identity theory that I have read, there always seems to just be one false identity present in a given situation. However, I don't believe that this is true. Maybe the theory was presented this way because in saying false identities the authors assume that the reader understands that the false identity is always multidimensional. Maybe Hochschild actually did say there are many identities competing in every situation, and it just got lost in translation. After all, I have not taking Hochschild's theory directly from her book, but rather from the interpretations of other.
However, no matter what the truth of the situation, my new beliefs of identity gives me a positive outlook on my potential future speaking abilities. I have always thought that I was a bad speaker and would never be able to command attention and effectively communicate my opinions in front of a large group of people. However, maybe if with time I become more experienced and comfortable with the many false identites I present, I will become a better speaker. Maybe I will finally not stumble while speaking. Maybe.
Why is it that when I practice alone or in front of friends and family I can think clearly, but when I speak in front of a group of people I get tongue tied and blank out? Perhaps one contributing factor can be found by using, and adapting Hochschild's idea of identity. According to Arlie Hochschild, we have a true identity and many false identities. The true identity has its own feelings and thoughts which can be exposed only when completely uninhibited, a situation which may never FULLY happen. Although we often say that we have emotions deep within us that represent what we are "really" feeling, even then those emotions may not be coming from our true identity but from the demands of society and the situation. Hochschild says that we have many false identities we present, depending on the demands of the situation. You may be an extrovert, a confident student, a optimistic brother, a family man, a pessimistic hater, a passionate lover, or adopt any other identity depending on what is appropriate to that situation; however, these presented identites are not who you really are. Hochschild says that these identities are necessary for us to get on in life, and to protect our true identity from being injured. However, despite the attempts to protect the true self, the true self may become inaccessible or lost as we present so many false identities that we don't really know who we are.
I have been studying Hochshild's identity theory and emotions in teacher education all semester, so I felt well versed on the topic of emotion training (or the lack thereof) in teacher education. However, I rarely applied this identity theory to myself. Maybe I have found a link by evaluating my speaking abilities...you tell me:
When we speak in front of anyone, even without Hochschild's identity theory, I think most people would agree that we are "not ourselves." For me, I spoke in front of two different audiences: my family/friends and my classmates/teacher. When I spoke in front of both groups, the main surface identity, or what I will refer to hereforth as my primary false identity, I was trying to portray was one in the same (that of a representative for a teacher education program). However, there was another false identity, a secondary false identity, inherent in the presentation: who I, James, actually am to those people. To my friends and family, I am a companion, a friend, someone who they (generally) associate with by choice. In the family situation, I feel that the false self I portray more closely resembles my true self. I feel uninhibited and comfortable with who I am at home. In such a situation, I don't have to be an intelligent academic because I know that these people will not judge me. However, to my teacher and classmates, I am an academic and the class is obligated to deal with me. Unlike the James identity I present to my family, the identity of "academic" is not one I am comfortable with. Of course I do well in school, but I am just a student, not an expert. Thus in the classroom case, my secondary false identity of academic is one I am less comfortable with and is more disconnected from what I believe to be my true identity.
When giving the CARE presentation, I was successful at home but stumbled in class. But, from a surface level, it seems that I was presenting the same identity in both situations, the false professional identity of CARE representative. However, this false identity of CARE representative/speaker must coexist with the other secondary false identity I must present. In front of my family, my secondary false identity was one I was comfortable with. In class, I was not comfortable with the secondary false identity of academic. Therefore, I believe that perhaps one reason why I was successful at home but not at school was because of the comfort level with the identity I present. Depending on how comfortable I am with that second identity, and whether it lies congruent with or antiparallel to the first false identity determines the effectiveness of the execution of the primary false identity.
My take on false identities may not be true, but I think it is intriguing to some extent. From the explanations of Hochschild's identity theory that I have read, there always seems to just be one false identity present in a given situation. However, I don't believe that this is true. Maybe the theory was presented this way because in saying false identities the authors assume that the reader understands that the false identity is always multidimensional. Maybe Hochschild actually did say there are many identities competing in every situation, and it just got lost in translation. After all, I have not taking Hochschild's theory directly from her book, but rather from the interpretations of other.
However, no matter what the truth of the situation, my new beliefs of identity gives me a positive outlook on my potential future speaking abilities. I have always thought that I was a bad speaker and would never be able to command attention and effectively communicate my opinions in front of a large group of people. However, maybe if with time I become more experienced and comfortable with the many false identites I present, I will become a better speaker. Maybe I will finally not stumble while speaking. Maybe.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Getting better at whacking the piñata
Today I re-read all of my blogs. My blogs are long, so it took a long time to read them all. However, I learned a lot about my writing and how it has improved over the semester. I now feel that I am able to analyze every rhetorical move I make and be more successful in English. Borrowing Brett’s analogy, I am no longer blindfolded and trying to whack a piñata. I feel that I am getting better at making educated decisions in my writing rather than just making random decisions and hoping they work. From reading my blogs, I have learned the following:
Long sentences are sometimes appropriate, but short sentences are often better. I remember when I got my rhetorical analysis back, I was upset with my grade. Then, I looked at Brett’s class-wide comments online and saw that one recommendation was to stop using long, flowery sentences. Initially I reacted negatively. “Yeah right. Brett, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Long sentences are who I am and I am good at writing them.” Despite thinking that long sentences were good, I tried to change my writing. In reviewing my blogs, I have noticed that writing in shorter sentences has paid off. When I re-read earlier blogs, I often didn’t understand what I was trying to say and it took me a long time to read the entries because the sentences were indeed “flowery” and confusing! For instance, in my blog “Analyzing an article using the Toulmin method,” I typed, “Tierney also stated that some opponents of the U.S. healthcare system argue that the U.S. only has better caner survival rates because cancer is detected early in the U.S., but this doesn’t show that we don’t treat cancer well, and in fact early detection is the best protection against the negative effects of cancer, so this complaint seems unworthy.” Now, this sentence seems like 4 sentences combined in one to me. Additionally, because I didn’t use separate sentences, it is unclear which ideas are mine and which were Tierneys’. When commenting on constitution of audience, nearly none of my sentences go beyond 2 lines long, and this makes the entry more readable and clear. I still use long sentences, but much less frequently, and often more effectively.
Don’t ask questions unless you give the answer. Another cardinal sin that I was guilty of at the start of this class was asking rhetorical questions. In my 09/17/2009 blog, I questioned, “Many people get tattoos of Chinese words or sayings, but why not just get the saying tattooed in English? My first impression of someone with a tattoo like this is, do they even really know what it says?” Well, what if the reader has these tattoos and says yes t o both questions? In such a case, they probably will stop reading having felt that they were disrespected or that the writer isn’t thinking about them. Instead, when I asked questions in later blogs, I followed nearly all questions with an answer. There are many examples of this improvement, but just one example (not to mention the one 2 sentences ago) is from the blog on constitution of audience where I ask, “But is acknowledging another audience the same as ‘creating’ them? I’m not really sure. I don’t think I create them.” I believe that when I ask questions like these, it gives the reader insight into how I am thinking. Also, it doesn’t leave them confused or unsatisfied because I answer the question rather than leaving it open ended. Sometimes it is OK to not give the answer such as when directly addressing the blogger audience and asking them what they think, but this is the exception, not the rule.
Engage your audience. In my first blog, I just talked about me. In my second blog, I talked about identity and me. In my third blog, I talked about tattoos and my feelings about them, not addressing the other side of the issue. In addition to ignoring anyone else’s opinions/ideas in these blogs, I started to use concepts from class without giving some background that the general public would need. For example, in my fourth blog, I asked myself whether I identified with Hochschild’s theory of true and false selves in my own life. However, in that blog I didn’t explain Hochschild’s theory or what the true and false selves are. Therefore, many of my early blogs were egocentric with little interest in the audience. Again, although I commit this offense regularly, I believe I have improved. In my 10/01/2009 blog, I gave brief descriptions of the theories of Cooley, Berger, Baudrillad, and Lyotard before making arguments about which ones were right and wrong. And, on 10/15/2009, I defined Hochschild’s theory before explaining the logistics of my convincing paper. And, in relation to not directly addressing the audience, I improved in this domain as well. In my blog “Easier said than done,” I directly asked the audience to “Think of going to a football game where you’re not welcomed,” or asked them “How could you say ‘no,’ this is not OK?” I think it is very important to make the readers feel involved, especially in the blog: readers want to know what you think, but they also want you to show that you are thinking about them and not just writing a journal. I guess this is one of the points where I started to realize that blogs shouldn’t just serve the purpose of saying what you think, but about engaging the reader too. Considering I didn’t even know what a blog was before I enrolled in English 225.021, I think I have learned a lot about this genre of writing.
Visuals were helpful when I used them, but I haven’t used them much. Therefore, I think I can improve in this area. Also, it is important to use a few examples to illustrate each point, not 1 example or 20. Too few examples don’t give enough support, whereas too many can bore the reader or make them confused.
Although I often dislike English classes, I realized today that this class is helping me learn how to be a better writer, and it shows in my blog. Also, blogging helps me practice my writing before approaching my papers.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
"Happy" Holidays...yeah, right
Sorry, this is going to be my rant. It’s not gonna be pretty, and if I don’t want to hear me complain, it may be best to stop reading. This blog is for me to vent…maybe there will be a little rhetorical analysis, but mostly venting…sorry Brett.
Why do people say “Happy Holidays"? Is it because they think that the holidays are a happy time? Is it because they want you to have a happy holiday? Or is it because they think you are having a crappy holiday and saying you “happy” holiday will make it better? Personally, when I say it, I try to say “have a happy holiday.” Why, you may ask? Because for me and my family, the holidays are never “happy.” I cannot remember a birthday I didn’t get yelled at. Nearly every Christmas isn’t merry. There is always a fight.
Let’s go for the most recent example. Thanksgiving was two days ago (yes, that was a Thursday, my blog was due then, sorry Brett, another fail). I started the whole thing off on a negative note although unintentionally. Have you ever accidentally texted the wrong person? Well, I commited this cardinal sin on Thursday. “omg…I’m gonna need a drink to put up with Amy…ugh, it’s awful.” Oh yeah, I sent that to Amy, quite unintentionally. Do you have a relative or have you ever met anyone who is terribly annoying and is impossible to deal with no matter how hard you try? Oh yeah, that’s Amy for me and most of my family members. Bad start, my fault.
Then, we went to my cousin’s house. Well, that was the biggest mistake of the year. When we got there, things were fine at first, but it didn’t last. Shortly after arriving, Amy completely clammed up. What was up? I found out shortly thereafter that my cousin, Lesley, who doesn’t know how to keep her mouth closed, got stuck talking with Amy. During their conversation, Amy disclosed that she is talking about filing for bankruptcy again, for the third time in her life. Lesley, feeling all high and mighty went on to say “well, it must be nice not having to pay your bills. When I acquire debt, it’s I pay it off like an honest person. When money is tight, I don’t buy plasma televisions like you, I eat a little less that month.” Needless to say, the next 4 hours were awkward and quiet. Don’t get me wrong, Lesley had every right to think that, and Amy needed to be called out on her crap, but at Thanksgiving? Really? Couldn’t you just bite your tongue?
I know you don’t have the background, so you may ask why was it such a big deal? Amy is 37 years old. I am 21. My parents don’t help me much with rent, tuition, or books. My debt acrues because I think it's wrong to take advantage of someone else, especially my retired parents. Lesley feels that as she is paying off her student loans, she can’t indulge in the luxuries. Yet, Amy doesn’t get it and always tries to play the victim. She buys new cars, new TV’s, new everything…then, like any normal (although, not good) American, she files bankruptcy. She also mooches off of my parents. She planned a vacation, then had my mom paid for it (despite the fact that my parents haven't been on a real vacation in the last 20 years). When she broke up with her husband, my parents completely furnished her new apartment with all new furniture…just like every other time my parents have bought her anything, she has destroyed it. When bills are tight, she gets a new dog, and treats it to the luxuries…her dog eats more expensive food than I ever have. Then, when the bills pile up, she “borrows” more money from my parents, who, mind you, are retired. I don’t even let my parents pay part of my credit card bill when they offer because I know they are retired and money is tight. But, Amy doesn’t seem to get it. She even said yesterday how it upset her that she couldn’t go to Sears to get the 42” TV at Sears on sale for $500. Then, she mentioned maybe she’ll just ask my mom and dad for the money, or not pay her rent next month (guess whose name the apartment is in? You guessed it; in my parents name b/c my sister has nothing for credit).
Segwaying away from Amy, my other sisters also blew us off for the holidays. My sister, Chrissy, told my mother that she was going over to her boyfriends' house for the holiday. Then, I caught her red-handed online when my other sister (who didn't return our calls about coming over for Thanksgiving) posted that she had a great Thanksgiving hanging out with Chrissy and my nephews. So, she blew us off, and much worse, she lied about it. When I confronted her at work the next day about it (yes, I work with her back at home), she denied ever saying that she was going to her boyfriend's family's home...yeah right.
Now, my parents in the basement are fighting over whose kids are worse and who has handled this whole situation worse (I have no full blood sisters...Amy is my mom's daughter; Chrissy, Carrie, and my two brothers are half-siblings on my fathers' side). I can't wait to get back to Ann Arbor and the peace and quiet.
The first paper I wrote in college was about how my family is broken and doesn't seem to care about anyone but themselves. I thought it only to be in classic fashion to end college on the same note. There are ups and downs in this family, but overall, mostly downs. Sorry to have complained, but maybe you found reading this blog to be interesting like watching a drama or comedy. Please, no sympathy replies...I don't want your sympathy.
So, I guess for English 225, my point would be that you should think next time about it when you say “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas.” I’m not saying don’t say these things, because it is nice to say them to people. My point is just to think about them, and maybe say “I hope you have a merry Christmas” or “Have a good holiday.” I don’t mean to be the scrooge who, in response to the statement “Good Morning,” says “what’s so good about it?” But, saying an extra few words at the beginning of the generic greetings shows that you really do wish the person the best, and that you are not just saying that the holidays are happy for everyone, because they’re not.
I hope you had a Happy Holiday!
Why do people say “Happy Holidays"? Is it because they think that the holidays are a happy time? Is it because they want you to have a happy holiday? Or is it because they think you are having a crappy holiday and saying you “happy” holiday will make it better? Personally, when I say it, I try to say “have a happy holiday.” Why, you may ask? Because for me and my family, the holidays are never “happy.” I cannot remember a birthday I didn’t get yelled at. Nearly every Christmas isn’t merry. There is always a fight.
Let’s go for the most recent example. Thanksgiving was two days ago (yes, that was a Thursday, my blog was due then, sorry Brett, another fail). I started the whole thing off on a negative note although unintentionally. Have you ever accidentally texted the wrong person? Well, I commited this cardinal sin on Thursday. “omg…I’m gonna need a drink to put up with Amy…ugh, it’s awful.” Oh yeah, I sent that to Amy, quite unintentionally. Do you have a relative or have you ever met anyone who is terribly annoying and is impossible to deal with no matter how hard you try? Oh yeah, that’s Amy for me and most of my family members. Bad start, my fault.
Then, we went to my cousin’s house. Well, that was the biggest mistake of the year. When we got there, things were fine at first, but it didn’t last. Shortly after arriving, Amy completely clammed up. What was up? I found out shortly thereafter that my cousin, Lesley, who doesn’t know how to keep her mouth closed, got stuck talking with Amy. During their conversation, Amy disclosed that she is talking about filing for bankruptcy again, for the third time in her life. Lesley, feeling all high and mighty went on to say “well, it must be nice not having to pay your bills. When I acquire debt, it’s I pay it off like an honest person. When money is tight, I don’t buy plasma televisions like you, I eat a little less that month.” Needless to say, the next 4 hours were awkward and quiet. Don’t get me wrong, Lesley had every right to think that, and Amy needed to be called out on her crap, but at Thanksgiving? Really? Couldn’t you just bite your tongue?
I know you don’t have the background, so you may ask why was it such a big deal? Amy is 37 years old. I am 21. My parents don’t help me much with rent, tuition, or books. My debt acrues because I think it's wrong to take advantage of someone else, especially my retired parents. Lesley feels that as she is paying off her student loans, she can’t indulge in the luxuries. Yet, Amy doesn’t get it and always tries to play the victim. She buys new cars, new TV’s, new everything…then, like any normal (although, not good) American, she files bankruptcy. She also mooches off of my parents. She planned a vacation, then had my mom paid for it (despite the fact that my parents haven't been on a real vacation in the last 20 years). When she broke up with her husband, my parents completely furnished her new apartment with all new furniture…just like every other time my parents have bought her anything, she has destroyed it. When bills are tight, she gets a new dog, and treats it to the luxuries…her dog eats more expensive food than I ever have. Then, when the bills pile up, she “borrows” more money from my parents, who, mind you, are retired. I don’t even let my parents pay part of my credit card bill when they offer because I know they are retired and money is tight. But, Amy doesn’t seem to get it. She even said yesterday how it upset her that she couldn’t go to Sears to get the 42” TV at Sears on sale for $500. Then, she mentioned maybe she’ll just ask my mom and dad for the money, or not pay her rent next month (guess whose name the apartment is in? You guessed it; in my parents name b/c my sister has nothing for credit).
Segwaying away from Amy, my other sisters also blew us off for the holidays. My sister, Chrissy, told my mother that she was going over to her boyfriends' house for the holiday. Then, I caught her red-handed online when my other sister (who didn't return our calls about coming over for Thanksgiving) posted that she had a great Thanksgiving hanging out with Chrissy and my nephews. So, she blew us off, and much worse, she lied about it. When I confronted her at work the next day about it (yes, I work with her back at home), she denied ever saying that she was going to her boyfriend's family's home...yeah right.
Now, my parents in the basement are fighting over whose kids are worse and who has handled this whole situation worse (I have no full blood sisters...Amy is my mom's daughter; Chrissy, Carrie, and my two brothers are half-siblings on my fathers' side). I can't wait to get back to Ann Arbor and the peace and quiet.
The first paper I wrote in college was about how my family is broken and doesn't seem to care about anyone but themselves. I thought it only to be in classic fashion to end college on the same note. There are ups and downs in this family, but overall, mostly downs. Sorry to have complained, but maybe you found reading this blog to be interesting like watching a drama or comedy. Please, no sympathy replies...I don't want your sympathy.
So, I guess for English 225, my point would be that you should think next time about it when you say “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas.” I’m not saying don’t say these things, because it is nice to say them to people. My point is just to think about them, and maybe say “I hope you have a merry Christmas” or “Have a good holiday.” I don’t mean to be the scrooge who, in response to the statement “Good Morning,” says “what’s so good about it?” But, saying an extra few words at the beginning of the generic greetings shows that you really do wish the person the best, and that you are not just saying that the holidays are happy for everyone, because they’re not.
I hope you had a Happy Holiday!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
War in the classroom: now is the time to act!
So, I am currently trying to think of what to persuade my audience to do, or at least what audience to try to address.
In case you haven't read my other blog posts, I'll get you up to speed. I have been writing about teachers and the emotion work that they do in the classroom. Teachers must fake emotions like smiling even when a student makes them angry or seems in despair. Faking their emotions requires that the teachers must supress other emotions. Sometimes, this holding in of emotions is very stressful, and some scholars have argued that this is a large, often overlooked, factor that contributes to teacher burnout (leaving the profession early in one's career). In other cases, teachers may not leave the profession, but may feel extreme emotional stress, even breaking down crying in front of their students or in the hallway. See what you think of the following two clips.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJQTaSu-LPg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg0ecMQXRPs
What would I use these two videos for you may ask?
For the first video, I think a video like this would get the attention of my audience, whoever that is (see below for discussion of this). It would make the audience somewhat scared for the teacher or for other students of the problems that can arise in the classroom. I would probably address my audience and ask them, “what would you do in this situation?” Or, “do you think that the current teacher education system prepares new time teachers for the stress they will encounter in the classroom?” Then, I would move into the rest of the presentation.
On the other hand, the second video shows exactly how teachers get stressed to the point that they cry. Is there potentially a way that we could teachers emotion management and skills that they need that may not entirely eliminate this risk? Probably not; But, according to research from literature, there are some skills that can be beneficial.
So, what do I want to persuade? At this point, there are two options:
First, I was thinking of acting as a representativefor a theoretical teaching program (not that I would present it as being theoretical...) to high school administrators. I would explain that the program would teach teachers the skills that would benefit them so that they don't get to this point in the classroom. I would try to establish and convince to them, just as I did in my paper, that one of the contributing factors of teacher burnout is poor emotion management skills, skills that can be primed and supplemented with training. I would use logos such as the cost and rates of burnout, and explain that the program that would save money in the long run. I believe that the videos shown above may help in the emotional appeal to try to make them feel sorry for their teachers, and try to help them identify with some of the difficult aspects of the teaching profession that incoming teachers would not be prepared for, unless they took my program :D Additionally,I would try to target them as present or future parents, and explain how students feel stress and anxiety when they have to switch teachers constantly, and use student anecdotes or the negative emotions they feel when their teachers leave after teaching their class.
My second option would be to essentially use the same approaches, but present my argument to a board of teacher educators at a conference or something like that. In this case, I wouldn't present a program that I developed for them to buy, but I would explain how much emotion plays into making a teacher good and able to relate to their students, and yet also contributes to burnout. I would then explain that more research needs to be done in this arena, and that in teacher education funds need to be diverted from solely benefitting the students to now also preparing for the teachers. I would explain that in diverting these funds, the students would actually benefit in the long run because positive, healthy, emotionally managed teachers are able to reach their students more, and their classes feel more engaged. I think it would be more important for this crowd to focus on the needs of the student more and explaining how teaching teachers emotion management would be the benefit of everyone involved.
So, which option do you think is better? Presenting a program that would focus on administrators and telling them that in their new teacher screening process they need to assess the emotional stability of their teachers and make them take this program if deemed necessary? Or should I focus on teacher educators and explain the need to do more research on the role emotions play in burnout and how we can develop new techniques to prepare teachers before they enter the classroom? Do you think the visuals above are effective on drawing on emotion and drawing in the audience?
In case you haven't read my other blog posts, I'll get you up to speed. I have been writing about teachers and the emotion work that they do in the classroom. Teachers must fake emotions like smiling even when a student makes them angry or seems in despair. Faking their emotions requires that the teachers must supress other emotions. Sometimes, this holding in of emotions is very stressful, and some scholars have argued that this is a large, often overlooked, factor that contributes to teacher burnout (leaving the profession early in one's career). In other cases, teachers may not leave the profession, but may feel extreme emotional stress, even breaking down crying in front of their students or in the hallway. See what you think of the following two clips.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJQTaSu-LPg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg0ecMQXRPs
What would I use these two videos for you may ask?
For the first video, I think a video like this would get the attention of my audience, whoever that is (see below for discussion of this). It would make the audience somewhat scared for the teacher or for other students of the problems that can arise in the classroom. I would probably address my audience and ask them, “what would you do in this situation?” Or, “do you think that the current teacher education system prepares new time teachers for the stress they will encounter in the classroom?” Then, I would move into the rest of the presentation.
On the other hand, the second video shows exactly how teachers get stressed to the point that they cry. Is there potentially a way that we could teachers emotion management and skills that they need that may not entirely eliminate this risk? Probably not; But, according to research from literature, there are some skills that can be beneficial.
So, what do I want to persuade? At this point, there are two options:
First, I was thinking of acting as a representativefor a theoretical teaching program (not that I would present it as being theoretical...) to high school administrators. I would explain that the program would teach teachers the skills that would benefit them so that they don't get to this point in the classroom. I would try to establish and convince to them, just as I did in my paper, that one of the contributing factors of teacher burnout is poor emotion management skills, skills that can be primed and supplemented with training. I would use logos such as the cost and rates of burnout, and explain that the program that would save money in the long run. I believe that the videos shown above may help in the emotional appeal to try to make them feel sorry for their teachers, and try to help them identify with some of the difficult aspects of the teaching profession that incoming teachers would not be prepared for, unless they took my program :D Additionally,I would try to target them as present or future parents, and explain how students feel stress and anxiety when they have to switch teachers constantly, and use student anecdotes or the negative emotions they feel when their teachers leave after teaching their class.
My second option would be to essentially use the same approaches, but present my argument to a board of teacher educators at a conference or something like that. In this case, I wouldn't present a program that I developed for them to buy, but I would explain how much emotion plays into making a teacher good and able to relate to their students, and yet also contributes to burnout. I would then explain that more research needs to be done in this arena, and that in teacher education funds need to be diverted from solely benefitting the students to now also preparing for the teachers. I would explain that in diverting these funds, the students would actually benefit in the long run because positive, healthy, emotionally managed teachers are able to reach their students more, and their classes feel more engaged. I think it would be more important for this crowd to focus on the needs of the student more and explaining how teaching teachers emotion management would be the benefit of everyone involved.
So, which option do you think is better? Presenting a program that would focus on administrators and telling them that in their new teacher screening process they need to assess the emotional stability of their teachers and make them take this program if deemed necessary? Or should I focus on teacher educators and explain the need to do more research on the role emotions play in burnout and how we can develop new techniques to prepare teachers before they enter the classroom? Do you think the visuals above are effective on drawing on emotion and drawing in the audience?
My confusion with constitution
In English 225 this week, we continued to discuss an article by Maurice Charland entitled "Constitutive Rhetoric: The Case of the People Quebecois." In this article, Charland uses Kenneth Burke's work to discuss how one my use identification in their rhetoric before they can begin to persuade their audience. According to Charland, in the rhetorical process, you must use identification to "hail" your audience. The idea of "hailing" or "interpellating" your audience comes from Louis Althusser, who says that you recruit or transform individuals, making them become subjects of your argument from the very beginning. Of course, the person has the option to just ignore your hailing; in other words, just because you say "hey, you there!" doesn't mean that the person will acknowledge you.
You don't just hail people on the street, you also hail them in your writing and your arguments; or, at least you should! When writing, we often assume that the people who will read our article are already open to the the argument, but this isn't always the case. Instead of just delving into your argument, you must first "constitute" the subject. Honestly, when I first read the article, I kept reading the term "constitutive" and could only relate it to my science classes; in genetics, a constitutive promoter is a DNA regulatory region that makes the gene hooked up to it "always on". Therefore, the first time I read this article, the term "constitutive rhetoric" was confusing. I didn't understand how you could "always" your audience. Instead, our teacher Brett used the constitution to explain that you constitute something, you create it, you form it. Well, although this clarified things, it definitely made me realize the importance of taking other classes, to get myself out of my science classes, and realize that studying just one subject limits your knowledge and approaches to thinking. Anyway, sorry for the side note...moving on...
Do bloggers "constitute" their audiences? We often assume that those reading our posts already know where we are coming from, or what we expect. When I started thinking about writing this blog, I thought whether I constituted my audience. I often just think that English 225 members and Brett were reading my blog, and that's all I really thought about. But, Brett has previously told me to explain my concepts more because this blog is public, and others may be reading it (unlikely, but a nice thought). So, I guess I have changed a little bit in my writing. I try to explain concepts that those in my class already know, not because I want to bore them, but because I am acknowledging my possible other audience. But is acknowledging another audience the same as "creating" them? I'm not really sure. I don't think I create them. I don't often try to build community and relate to those who may not be open to my opinions before I make my arguments, but maybe I do?
Perhaps even more interesting to me is the idea of commercials and whether they "constitute" their audiences, or whether their audience already exists. I think there are definitely two sides to this argument, and I can't say that I agree 100% with either side.
One side of the commercial & constitutive audience argument is that commercials don't constitute their audience because they audience is already created/called out to by the television show that is on. I was watching some court TV shows today (Judge Judy, Judge Alex, etc.) and I noticed that a ton of the commercials were about lawyers and attorneys. Believe me, if you need an attorney, watch Fox between 2-4PM. Nearly every commercial had a lawyer: "only an attorney can help you every step of the way," "call Sam Bernstein," "we'll fight for you." Did these commercials create an audience? I lean towards saying no, because those who are watching the show are already looking to get legal info, are interested in the legal process, or are intrigued by the cases they will see. So, placing these commercials between the legal shows isn't the same as between comedies. If the commercials were in between scenes from "Two & a Half Men," they would call out to the audience more, they would have to create the audience, but that task is already done by Judge Judy when placed after one of her verdicts.
On the other hand, one could argue that, no matter where they are placed, the commercials do create their audience. Even if the type of audience is called out by the type of show that is on, that doesn't mean that the commercials don't have to call out to you. The attorney commercials try to make the audience see that their clients are just like everyone else. The "clients" (in quotation marks since they are actually actors), look just like everyday people, they have everyday cases, and you feel like you can relate to them. Then, they actually call out to the audience: "only an attorney can help YOU every step of the way" or "don't let them take advantage of YOU". It seems that in fact, the commercials are calling out to the viewer, "hailing" them. I agree with this position as well. However, I just think they make their job a lot easier by targetting an already law-interested consumer rather than addressing those who don't follow law. To what extent do commercials between shows that are similar to their claim call out to the audience, and to what extent have they already been created...I wonder, although I'm not sure there's a clear cut answer.
Next time you are watching TV, pay attention to the commercials and the context in which they are shown. Do you think they created an audience, or was the audience already created? Does it depend on the product they are selling (a car commercial vs. a furniture one?)? In either case you have to create or relate to your audience in some way, but to what extent? What are your thoughts?
You don't just hail people on the street, you also hail them in your writing and your arguments; or, at least you should! When writing, we often assume that the people who will read our article are already open to the the argument, but this isn't always the case. Instead of just delving into your argument, you must first "constitute" the subject. Honestly, when I first read the article, I kept reading the term "constitutive" and could only relate it to my science classes; in genetics, a constitutive promoter is a DNA regulatory region that makes the gene hooked up to it "always on". Therefore, the first time I read this article, the term "constitutive rhetoric" was confusing. I didn't understand how you could "always" your audience. Instead, our teacher Brett used the constitution to explain that you constitute something, you create it, you form it. Well, although this clarified things, it definitely made me realize the importance of taking other classes, to get myself out of my science classes, and realize that studying just one subject limits your knowledge and approaches to thinking. Anyway, sorry for the side note...moving on...
Do bloggers "constitute" their audiences? We often assume that those reading our posts already know where we are coming from, or what we expect. When I started thinking about writing this blog, I thought whether I constituted my audience. I often just think that English 225 members and Brett were reading my blog, and that's all I really thought about. But, Brett has previously told me to explain my concepts more because this blog is public, and others may be reading it (unlikely, but a nice thought). So, I guess I have changed a little bit in my writing. I try to explain concepts that those in my class already know, not because I want to bore them, but because I am acknowledging my possible other audience. But is acknowledging another audience the same as "creating" them? I'm not really sure. I don't think I create them. I don't often try to build community and relate to those who may not be open to my opinions before I make my arguments, but maybe I do?
Perhaps even more interesting to me is the idea of commercials and whether they "constitute" their audiences, or whether their audience already exists. I think there are definitely two sides to this argument, and I can't say that I agree 100% with either side.
One side of the commercial & constitutive audience argument is that commercials don't constitute their audience because they audience is already created/called out to by the television show that is on. I was watching some court TV shows today (Judge Judy, Judge Alex, etc.) and I noticed that a ton of the commercials were about lawyers and attorneys. Believe me, if you need an attorney, watch Fox between 2-4PM. Nearly every commercial had a lawyer: "only an attorney can help you every step of the way," "call Sam Bernstein," "we'll fight for you." Did these commercials create an audience? I lean towards saying no, because those who are watching the show are already looking to get legal info, are interested in the legal process, or are intrigued by the cases they will see. So, placing these commercials between the legal shows isn't the same as between comedies. If the commercials were in between scenes from "Two & a Half Men," they would call out to the audience more, they would have to create the audience, but that task is already done by Judge Judy when placed after one of her verdicts.
On the other hand, one could argue that, no matter where they are placed, the commercials do create their audience. Even if the type of audience is called out by the type of show that is on, that doesn't mean that the commercials don't have to call out to you. The attorney commercials try to make the audience see that their clients are just like everyone else. The "clients" (in quotation marks since they are actually actors), look just like everyday people, they have everyday cases, and you feel like you can relate to them. Then, they actually call out to the audience: "only an attorney can help YOU every step of the way" or "don't let them take advantage of YOU". It seems that in fact, the commercials are calling out to the viewer, "hailing" them. I agree with this position as well. However, I just think they make their job a lot easier by targetting an already law-interested consumer rather than addressing those who don't follow law. To what extent do commercials between shows that are similar to their claim call out to the audience, and to what extent have they already been created...I wonder, although I'm not sure there's a clear cut answer.
Next time you are watching TV, pay attention to the commercials and the context in which they are shown. Do you think they created an audience, or was the audience already created? Does it depend on the product they are selling (a car commercial vs. a furniture one?)? In either case you have to create or relate to your audience in some way, but to what extent? What are your thoughts?
Friday, November 13, 2009
Now I will preach. Tell me later if I'm practicing!
In my last blog, I discussed some of the merits of my fellow English 225 classmates blogs. However, rather than just appreciating their blogs, it's time to learn from them! How can I improve my own blogs?
First off, I think that one way to improve my blogs would be to try to be more creative with my titles. I really do try my best to make my titles seem interesting and draw in the reader, but sometimes they fall flat. Rather than just saying what I am going to write about, perhaps I should try to put funny quotes or phrases, or even something more serious in the titles.
Additionally, I think that some of the time, my titles get too long and offer too much information. For instance, in my blog “Low-income schools + many students - motivated Teachers = A need for someone like you” I tried to incorporate visuals. I thought my title was clever, and obviously it did bring in some readers (thanks Payel for your input!), I think it may have been a little bit on the long side. Perhaps in some cases I should even put just one or two words that are particularly controversial or funny, or stand out in some other way; that way, the reader will be interested, and will need to actually read the blog, not just the title, to know where the blog will be going.
Be succinct! Oh, this is a problem I don’t know if I will ever be able to overcome. I try really hard to be straight to the point, but I know I often am not. I do feel that it is important to explain my reasoning and the ways in which I interpret something because others may not see the concept the same way and will not understand my logic. But, being long winded can keep some readers from starting to read the article, or once they have started, they may stop reading. I know that my schedule can often get hectic, and although I may find someone’s blog title and first paragraph interesting, I may only skim the rest of the blog if I don’t have the time to commit to reading it in depth. Therefore, I will try to be a little more condensed so that others who are turned off by the length of my blog will be more likely to read it.
And, if I don’t make my overall blogs shorter, I will try to at least break them into shorter paragraphs to keep the mind from wandering!
Use visuals, James! I think the blog that I enjoyed writing the most, and the one that perhaps also had the most impact, was the one in which I used visuals from Teach for America and other sources. Visuals can attract the audience, or they can make their own statements, sometimes even in closing the argument. As they say, a pic is worth a thousand words...often, it’s worth much more! Although I can throw statistics at my readers until the cows come home (or yes, I did use that phrase, lol), it’s more likely they will remember the visuals at the end of the day.
Who are you? OK, this will be the last improvement I will mention. In reading Matt’s and Lauren’s blogs, I didn’t even have to actually know them outside of the class to know their personalities: I could “see” them just by reading their writing. Their comedic effects, short sentences, bold arguments, and controversial issues helped me know who they were. I often think of writing this blog as one thing: an assignment. In forgetting to have a little fun with the blog, I think I often lose my voice, and I will try to bring more of who I am and what I am feeling to my blog, whether that be my current feelings of despair (3 exams next week, ugh!) or my fun loving, sarcastic personality.
Thanks for reading! Make sure you keep me in line in future blogs…if I’m too long winded or dry, feel free to tell me!
First off, I think that one way to improve my blogs would be to try to be more creative with my titles. I really do try my best to make my titles seem interesting and draw in the reader, but sometimes they fall flat. Rather than just saying what I am going to write about, perhaps I should try to put funny quotes or phrases, or even something more serious in the titles.
Additionally, I think that some of the time, my titles get too long and offer too much information. For instance, in my blog “Low-income schools + many students - motivated Teachers = A need for someone like you” I tried to incorporate visuals. I thought my title was clever, and obviously it did bring in some readers (thanks Payel for your input!), I think it may have been a little bit on the long side. Perhaps in some cases I should even put just one or two words that are particularly controversial or funny, or stand out in some other way; that way, the reader will be interested, and will need to actually read the blog, not just the title, to know where the blog will be going.
Be succinct! Oh, this is a problem I don’t know if I will ever be able to overcome. I try really hard to be straight to the point, but I know I often am not. I do feel that it is important to explain my reasoning and the ways in which I interpret something because others may not see the concept the same way and will not understand my logic. But, being long winded can keep some readers from starting to read the article, or once they have started, they may stop reading. I know that my schedule can often get hectic, and although I may find someone’s blog title and first paragraph interesting, I may only skim the rest of the blog if I don’t have the time to commit to reading it in depth. Therefore, I will try to be a little more condensed so that others who are turned off by the length of my blog will be more likely to read it.
And, if I don’t make my overall blogs shorter, I will try to at least break them into shorter paragraphs to keep the mind from wandering!
Use visuals, James! I think the blog that I enjoyed writing the most, and the one that perhaps also had the most impact, was the one in which I used visuals from Teach for America and other sources. Visuals can attract the audience, or they can make their own statements, sometimes even in closing the argument. As they say, a pic is worth a thousand words...often, it’s worth much more! Although I can throw statistics at my readers until the cows come home (or yes, I did use that phrase, lol), it’s more likely they will remember the visuals at the end of the day.
Who are you? OK, this will be the last improvement I will mention. In reading Matt’s and Lauren’s blogs, I didn’t even have to actually know them outside of the class to know their personalities: I could “see” them just by reading their writing. Their comedic effects, short sentences, bold arguments, and controversial issues helped me know who they were. I often think of writing this blog as one thing: an assignment. In forgetting to have a little fun with the blog, I think I often lose my voice, and I will try to bring more of who I am and what I am feeling to my blog, whether that be my current feelings of despair (3 exams next week, ugh!) or my fun loving, sarcastic personality.
Thanks for reading! Make sure you keep me in line in future blogs…if I’m too long winded or dry, feel free to tell me!
As Matt puts it, our group is the "bees knees"
So, for this blog, for once I'm not gonna talk about myself and my interests...hope you enjoy it! This week, I will analyze my favorite English 225 student blogs and why they stick out to me.
First up to the plate...Matt McCrary's Rad Rhetorical Reasoning. One of my favorite things about Matt's blog is the titles that he uses, whether those titles are for his individual posts or even for his blog as a whole. The overall blog title uses alliteration, yet is informal and kinda makes me laugh a little (rhetorical reasoning...rad...really? Oh how I wish rhetorical reasoning was rad. Well, Matt's reasoning seems pretty "rad" most of the time...so, I'll go with it). Then, Matt's personality and fun nature continues beyond the titles of the posts to the content of the posts themselves. In one post, "If Somebody Told Me All I Needed Was Axe," Matt discusses the visual argument made by a picture of a "nerdy" guy at the top and a periodic table full of beautiful women, and how Axe body spray allows this nerd to unlock the gateway to a periodic table of women. Again, not only is the visual intriguing and interesting, but the comedic effect of the title, text, and image fit perfectly with one another and help you understand Matt's arguments, but also allow you to see his personality.
Additionally, Matt's blogs are generally fairly short (well, at least compared to my ridiculously long ones), and straight to the point. I admire this aspect because I know, that as a busy college student, leisure time to thoroughly read a long blog is not probably often attainable. Additionally, I know that I often have a short attention span, and if an article is too long, I likely won't finish the whole thing. One example of the succinct, straight to the point format of his sentence structure is, "Yes, this ad is over the top. Yes, it’s blatantly sexual. But if I wasn’t a Right Guard man, I might just go get myself some Axe." I appreciate that I don't have to meddle through long sentences, and the short sentences really drive the message home. Therefore, for the personality and straightforward nature of his writing, I appreciate Matt's blog (http://matt-mccrary.blogspot.com/).
Another blog that I appreciate is Lauren's blog. Now, in evaluating her blog, I see that it has many of the same characteristics that I liked in Matt's blog. Like in Matt's blog, I really liked the titles of the posts and of the blog as a whole. Titles of posts include, "Halloween: Slutty Nurse, Slutty Cop or Just Plain Slut?" and "Hi, my name is Bill and I have Cancer!" Then, the title of her overall blog is "blogging my way to my identity..." Any of these titles grab the attention of the reader (at least, they got my attention), and made me want to read the blog without already knowing the whole point of the post. I didn't know where the "Hi, my name is Bill and I have Cancer!" post was going to go, but I knew that I wanted to read to find out. Grabbing the readers attention is huge, and Lauren definitely does this, although I believe her titles are a little more controversial than Matt's.
Additionally, I really liked the spacing/paragraph"ing" of Lauren's blog. Her paragraphs were short and succinct. In making the paragraphs short, it made it hard to get lost in the text (AKA, not knowing which line comes next). Additionally, the paragraphs seem very well structured and thought out. In her post "Hitler: can he convince you" Lauren even goes so far as to start out paragraphs with bold titles, thereby making it easy to see the organization of her blog.
Don't worry, Nehal, Angela, or the newest addition to our group, Gilad, I appreciate your blogs too (and the rest of Eng 225, of course)! Everyone in our class writes great blogs, but I particularly appreciate the straightforward, honest, succinct, and often comedic writings of Matt & Lauren.
First up to the plate...Matt McCrary's Rad Rhetorical Reasoning. One of my favorite things about Matt's blog is the titles that he uses, whether those titles are for his individual posts or even for his blog as a whole. The overall blog title uses alliteration, yet is informal and kinda makes me laugh a little (rhetorical reasoning...rad...really? Oh how I wish rhetorical reasoning was rad. Well, Matt's reasoning seems pretty "rad" most of the time...so, I'll go with it). Then, Matt's personality and fun nature continues beyond the titles of the posts to the content of the posts themselves. In one post, "If Somebody Told Me All I Needed Was Axe," Matt discusses the visual argument made by a picture of a "nerdy" guy at the top and a periodic table full of beautiful women, and how Axe body spray allows this nerd to unlock the gateway to a periodic table of women. Again, not only is the visual intriguing and interesting, but the comedic effect of the title, text, and image fit perfectly with one another and help you understand Matt's arguments, but also allow you to see his personality.
Additionally, Matt's blogs are generally fairly short (well, at least compared to my ridiculously long ones), and straight to the point. I admire this aspect because I know, that as a busy college student, leisure time to thoroughly read a long blog is not probably often attainable. Additionally, I know that I often have a short attention span, and if an article is too long, I likely won't finish the whole thing. One example of the succinct, straight to the point format of his sentence structure is, "Yes, this ad is over the top. Yes, it’s blatantly sexual. But if I wasn’t a Right Guard man, I might just go get myself some Axe." I appreciate that I don't have to meddle through long sentences, and the short sentences really drive the message home. Therefore, for the personality and straightforward nature of his writing, I appreciate Matt's blog (http://matt-mccrary.blogspot.com/).
Another blog that I appreciate is Lauren's blog. Now, in evaluating her blog, I see that it has many of the same characteristics that I liked in Matt's blog. Like in Matt's blog, I really liked the titles of the posts and of the blog as a whole. Titles of posts include, "Halloween: Slutty Nurse, Slutty Cop or Just Plain Slut?" and "Hi, my name is Bill and I have Cancer!" Then, the title of her overall blog is "blogging my way to my identity..." Any of these titles grab the attention of the reader (at least, they got my attention), and made me want to read the blog without already knowing the whole point of the post. I didn't know where the "Hi, my name is Bill and I have Cancer!" post was going to go, but I knew that I wanted to read to find out. Grabbing the readers attention is huge, and Lauren definitely does this, although I believe her titles are a little more controversial than Matt's.
Additionally, I really liked the spacing/paragraph"ing" of Lauren's blog. Her paragraphs were short and succinct. In making the paragraphs short, it made it hard to get lost in the text (AKA, not knowing which line comes next). Additionally, the paragraphs seem very well structured and thought out. In her post "Hitler: can he convince you" Lauren even goes so far as to start out paragraphs with bold titles, thereby making it easy to see the organization of her blog.
Don't worry, Nehal, Angela, or the newest addition to our group, Gilad, I appreciate your blogs too (and the rest of Eng 225, of course)! Everyone in our class writes great blogs, but I particularly appreciate the straightforward, honest, succinct, and often comedic writings of Matt & Lauren.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Low-income schools + many students - motivated Teachers = A need for someone like you
(http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs009/1101793155518/archive/1102563242266.html)
We constantly hear in the news (at least I do as a metro Detroit resident) that schools are closing because they just can’t afford to stay open. When I hear that more schools are closing, this makes me think of all the students that need to be bused further away from their home schools if they want to continue their education. It also makes me think of how hard it must be if these kids must then be crammed into other classes like the one below, where some students don’t even get a desk because classes are so overcrowded.
(http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ed-cuts20-2009sep20,0,2312077.story)
But, despite the fact that some classes become overcrowded, this is not really the norm, especially in low income districts. And, even more, especially not in higher level grades like 12th grade. By then, most of the students will have already dropped out. When I think of high school graduation, I think of it being a necessity in order to get a decent job. Hell, when I think of getting a good job, I wonder if an undergraduate degree is even sufficient. Right now, I am on the verge of graduating from college and wonder what it is that I will do once I graduate. So, why aren’t high schoolers getting it? Why don’t they push themselves to get to graduation? Do they just not care? From what I have learned in the Teach for America application process and in reading numerous articles in developmental psychology as well as on the news on this subject, these kids do care, or at least want to care. The problem is that the kids either aren’t challenged enough, and when they are challenged, they are not given the support they need to reach those high expectations. When they aren’t challenged they either know it and feel that they are being treated like kids; they feel that they are undermined. Or, they think that they are up to par, and then they find out when they get a difficult teacher, that they have been betrayed all these years, that they really don’t know what they thought they knew, and then they start to feel like they aren’t smart enough to make it any further. They feel that they are too far behind, and begin to think that it’s not worth pushing forward if they are going to keep failing. So, they quit. Like many of their parents, they end up dropping out of high school, getting a minimum wage job, and live pay check to paycheck like much of the rest of America.
But, is this what they want? No. Who wants to struggle? I’m going to venture to say, no one. Therefore, these kids need to be challenged every step of the way. And, when they fail, someone needs to be there for them to say, “it’s alright. We’ll work together on this. You can do it.” Therefore, motivated, dedicated, caring teachers need to go into the classroom and turn things around. But many question whether it’s really worth becoming a teacher.
Sure, being a teacher can be difficult. That’s why so many teachers drop out of the field within the first few years of teaching. According to Mei-Lin Chang of Ohio State University (UM fans, don’t hate me for using an OSU scholar’s argument!), studies have shown that as many as 40% of teachers will completely change professions within 5 years of starting teaching. This phenomenon of joining the profession and feeling the need to leave is referred to as burnout. So, why do teachers leave the profession? My family argues that teachers don’t get paid enough to deal with “those” rude kids who don’t value education. Madeline Justice & Sue Espinoza argue in their article “Emotional Intelligence and Beginning Teacher Candidates” in the scholarly journal Education. that reasons for burnout include “low salaries,…working conditions, classroom discipline, administrative support, extensive paperwork, lack of respect, lack of parental involvement, and…few career advancement opportunities” (Justice & Espinosa, 2007).
But, beyond the difficulties, there are benefits to being a teacher. If you agree with my coworker Marc, one of the greatest perks of being a teacher is getting that all that vacation time. If you get a run-of-the-mill job, expect 2-3 weeks of vacation a year. If you are a teacher, expect about 3 months of vacation a year. Then, there is the perk that you get health, dental, and vision benefits, not to mention paid leave. But, as most teachers will probably tell you, money and benefits are not the best benefits of being a teacher. If a teacher has the right attitude and emotional abilities, positive emotions are often the best reward. As found by Izhar Oplatka in his June 2007 journal article in The Teaching Record, “[w]hen teachers were asked about what they find satisfying in their jobs, they spontaneously refer to emotions of joy, wonder, and excitement.” One of the reason Teach for America targets the top college students is because they are passionate about the fields they went to college for, and when they get to instruct about what they love, their satisfaction and their students motivation both rise substantially. Therefore, if you have want the highest paying, easiest job in the world, don’t teach. But if you want to make a difference in the world and see graduation ceremonies with seats filled for all students, not just half of them, teach. If you want other students to have the same options that you had, teach. If you want to make a difference in the world, and make a decent (albeit, not rich) living, teach. Otherwise, without your passion and dedication, students will continue to fall behind, and graduation ceremonies will continue to look like the one in the image shown below.
(http://who-will-kiss-the-pig.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html)
We constantly hear in the news (at least I do as a metro Detroit resident) that schools are closing because they just can’t afford to stay open. When I hear that more schools are closing, this makes me think of all the students that need to be bused further away from their home schools if they want to continue their education. It also makes me think of how hard it must be if these kids must then be crammed into other classes like the one below, where some students don’t even get a desk because classes are so overcrowded.
(http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ed-cuts20-2009sep20,0,2312077.story)
But, despite the fact that some classes become overcrowded, this is not really the norm, especially in low income districts. And, even more, especially not in higher level grades like 12th grade. By then, most of the students will have already dropped out. When I think of high school graduation, I think of it being a necessity in order to get a decent job. Hell, when I think of getting a good job, I wonder if an undergraduate degree is even sufficient. Right now, I am on the verge of graduating from college and wonder what it is that I will do once I graduate. So, why aren’t high schoolers getting it? Why don’t they push themselves to get to graduation? Do they just not care? From what I have learned in the Teach for America application process and in reading numerous articles in developmental psychology as well as on the news on this subject, these kids do care, or at least want to care. The problem is that the kids either aren’t challenged enough, and when they are challenged, they are not given the support they need to reach those high expectations. When they aren’t challenged they either know it and feel that they are being treated like kids; they feel that they are undermined. Or, they think that they are up to par, and then they find out when they get a difficult teacher, that they have been betrayed all these years, that they really don’t know what they thought they knew, and then they start to feel like they aren’t smart enough to make it any further. They feel that they are too far behind, and begin to think that it’s not worth pushing forward if they are going to keep failing. So, they quit. Like many of their parents, they end up dropping out of high school, getting a minimum wage job, and live pay check to paycheck like much of the rest of America.
But, is this what they want? No. Who wants to struggle? I’m going to venture to say, no one. Therefore, these kids need to be challenged every step of the way. And, when they fail, someone needs to be there for them to say, “it’s alright. We’ll work together on this. You can do it.” Therefore, motivated, dedicated, caring teachers need to go into the classroom and turn things around. But many question whether it’s really worth becoming a teacher.
Sure, being a teacher can be difficult. That’s why so many teachers drop out of the field within the first few years of teaching. According to Mei-Lin Chang of Ohio State University (UM fans, don’t hate me for using an OSU scholar’s argument!), studies have shown that as many as 40% of teachers will completely change professions within 5 years of starting teaching. This phenomenon of joining the profession and feeling the need to leave is referred to as burnout. So, why do teachers leave the profession? My family argues that teachers don’t get paid enough to deal with “those” rude kids who don’t value education. Madeline Justice & Sue Espinoza argue in their article “Emotional Intelligence and Beginning Teacher Candidates” in the scholarly journal Education. that reasons for burnout include “low salaries,…working conditions, classroom discipline, administrative support, extensive paperwork, lack of respect, lack of parental involvement, and…few career advancement opportunities” (Justice & Espinosa, 2007).
But, beyond the difficulties, there are benefits to being a teacher. If you agree with my coworker Marc, one of the greatest perks of being a teacher is getting that all that vacation time. If you get a run-of-the-mill job, expect 2-3 weeks of vacation a year. If you are a teacher, expect about 3 months of vacation a year. Then, there is the perk that you get health, dental, and vision benefits, not to mention paid leave. But, as most teachers will probably tell you, money and benefits are not the best benefits of being a teacher. If a teacher has the right attitude and emotional abilities, positive emotions are often the best reward. As found by Izhar Oplatka in his June 2007 journal article in The Teaching Record, “[w]hen teachers were asked about what they find satisfying in their jobs, they spontaneously refer to emotions of joy, wonder, and excitement.” One of the reason Teach for America targets the top college students is because they are passionate about the fields they went to college for, and when they get to instruct about what they love, their satisfaction and their students motivation both rise substantially. Therefore, if you have want the highest paying, easiest job in the world, don’t teach. But if you want to make a difference in the world and see graduation ceremonies with seats filled for all students, not just half of them, teach. If you want other students to have the same options that you had, teach. If you want to make a difference in the world, and make a decent (albeit, not rich) living, teach. Otherwise, without your passion and dedication, students will continue to fall behind, and graduation ceremonies will continue to look like the one in the image shown below.
(http://who-will-kiss-the-pig.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html)
Easier said than done
Think back to 1934, as Hitler is continuing to gain power in Germany. Now, imagine that you were a German, and all of your friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. were steadfast dedicated to the goals and means of the National Party. Your friends would look at Hitler, idolize him, and wanted nothing more than your country to be brought together, and saw that Hitler was bringing the nation together. Would you be able to see beyond the desirable front that was being put up, and know to leave the country before the Party gained too much power? From our perspective, and knowing all of the cruel things that Hitler did, sure, you might think it would be easy to identify that Hitler’s schemes were not to be trusted. But, what if you didn’t know about the Holocaust? What if you didn’t know about Hitler’s dirty laundry? My English class explored this idea recently, and have come to conclude that many of us would have just gone with the flow. So, how can we ensure that something similar doesn’t happen again? Perhaps that’s the whole point of taking a class on argument; to understand what makes an argument good, and how to see past the desirable exterior.
In class on Monday, my teacher showed us a film called Triumph of the Will. This black-and-white film was produced by Leni Riefenstahl in 1934 under the funding/guidance of Adolf Hitler. If you are not a history buff, that was 5 years before Germany invaded Poland, and many years before the Holocaust. There were already camps in 1933 for those “undesireables” who broke the laws and fought against those in power, but these camps weren’t limited to one race or group like the Jews. Also, this was following WWI, and Germany didn’t look that desirable to the rest of the world. Therefore, Germany had to build up its image, build up its national character, and make the Germans themselves as well as the rest of the world respect Germany. This is where Hitler came in, and the film made by Riefenstahl aided in that mission.
In the movie, right from the beginning, what you see is desireable. The film starts from a plane floating in the clouds, a scenic view. Then, as the plane landed, a crowd awaited, cheering, happy and content. How could anything be wrong? Hitler was shown in his car driving down the streets. It seemed impossible to fathom that anyone was still in their homes because the sidewalks were so crowded, but no one seemed annoyed by this fact. At night, there were parties, fireworks, live music. During the day, the movie showed women with baskets of food, children eating apples; it seemed like a bountiful time. All of these visuals were arguments that as Hitler was rising to power, people were happy, they were well-fed, and they were united as one people supporting one person. Hitler appealed to people’s ethos by showing that other people gave him the power, and that he was willing and able to accept it. At the same time, there were constant appeals to pathos, in that people were just shown loving Hitler. Hitler was shown holding babies, people were fed; no one had to worry about pain or famine, so people were happy. People were brainwashed by this.
How could you say, “no” this is not OK? If you were brainwashed into thinking that Hitler is equated with food and prosperity and a united nation, wouldn’t you want him to stay in power? If you decided that Hitler was too radical, you would probably be shunned. Think of going to a football game where you’re not welcomed. For example, one of my classmates said how they went to the University of Michigan – Michigan State football game a few weeks ago, and how people booed her, harassed her, and even threw things at her. This would be emotionally difficult for one day; would you really want to deal with this harassment every day, even if you really did love the opposing team? Probably not. Maybe you would fake it and say that you loved State, maybe you’d just keep quiet, or maybe you’d just leave if you could. But if East Lansing was home to you, and the city was prosperous, it seems that it would be difficult to uproot. This may be similar to why even those people who knew something was up stayed in Germany and kept their mouths shut. However, although those people who go against the grain may be ridiculed, those are the people who make the greatest impact in history. Martin Luther King, Jr. , Rosa Parks, Thomas Edison, Amelia Earhart: these people all did what everyone else told them was crazy, wasn’t normal, and they were ridiculed. Sometimes we have to step back and say, maybe the extremists have a point worth examining; I really need to try to see both sides of the story: that’s what argument is. Objectively examining both sides, and coming to a conclusion, that’s the best option. That’s perhaps one reason why pathos is avoided in academic writing: because pathos has a tendency to pull on the heartstrings and make you forget logic.
So, argument can be used to develop an identity for both parties involved: those you are viewing and those that are being viewed. People liked Hitler, because he argued that people liked him; or at least, that’s what Leni Riefenstahl argued in the film she produced. At the same time, the visual and verbal arguments in the movie argued that Germans were united, and that everyone wanted the same thing. Using Riesman’s theory of the conforming self, people were other-directed, worrying about the needs of the other. But, by doing what everyone else was doing, the Germans were convinced that they were really looking out for themselves because the images they saw showed that being other-directed meant being prosperous.
In the end, I guess my point is that although it sometimes may seem easiest or the most logical to go with the flow, we need to step back, reevaluate why we are thinking the things we are thinking, and ask objectively whether the situation we are in really is for the best. It is easy to become brainwashed into thinking that something is the best option or the best way of doing things, but we should always balance our view with the opposing view and underlying reasons for their argument, and decide if we really do respect the side that we argue for. This is easier said than done, but it’s worth the fight.
In class on Monday, my teacher showed us a film called Triumph of the Will. This black-and-white film was produced by Leni Riefenstahl in 1934 under the funding/guidance of Adolf Hitler. If you are not a history buff, that was 5 years before Germany invaded Poland, and many years before the Holocaust. There were already camps in 1933 for those “undesireables” who broke the laws and fought against those in power, but these camps weren’t limited to one race or group like the Jews. Also, this was following WWI, and Germany didn’t look that desirable to the rest of the world. Therefore, Germany had to build up its image, build up its national character, and make the Germans themselves as well as the rest of the world respect Germany. This is where Hitler came in, and the film made by Riefenstahl aided in that mission.
In the movie, right from the beginning, what you see is desireable. The film starts from a plane floating in the clouds, a scenic view. Then, as the plane landed, a crowd awaited, cheering, happy and content. How could anything be wrong? Hitler was shown in his car driving down the streets. It seemed impossible to fathom that anyone was still in their homes because the sidewalks were so crowded, but no one seemed annoyed by this fact. At night, there were parties, fireworks, live music. During the day, the movie showed women with baskets of food, children eating apples; it seemed like a bountiful time. All of these visuals were arguments that as Hitler was rising to power, people were happy, they were well-fed, and they were united as one people supporting one person. Hitler appealed to people’s ethos by showing that other people gave him the power, and that he was willing and able to accept it. At the same time, there were constant appeals to pathos, in that people were just shown loving Hitler. Hitler was shown holding babies, people were fed; no one had to worry about pain or famine, so people were happy. People were brainwashed by this.
How could you say, “no” this is not OK? If you were brainwashed into thinking that Hitler is equated with food and prosperity and a united nation, wouldn’t you want him to stay in power? If you decided that Hitler was too radical, you would probably be shunned. Think of going to a football game where you’re not welcomed. For example, one of my classmates said how they went to the University of Michigan – Michigan State football game a few weeks ago, and how people booed her, harassed her, and even threw things at her. This would be emotionally difficult for one day; would you really want to deal with this harassment every day, even if you really did love the opposing team? Probably not. Maybe you would fake it and say that you loved State, maybe you’d just keep quiet, or maybe you’d just leave if you could. But if East Lansing was home to you, and the city was prosperous, it seems that it would be difficult to uproot. This may be similar to why even those people who knew something was up stayed in Germany and kept their mouths shut. However, although those people who go against the grain may be ridiculed, those are the people who make the greatest impact in history. Martin Luther King, Jr. , Rosa Parks, Thomas Edison, Amelia Earhart: these people all did what everyone else told them was crazy, wasn’t normal, and they were ridiculed. Sometimes we have to step back and say, maybe the extremists have a point worth examining; I really need to try to see both sides of the story: that’s what argument is. Objectively examining both sides, and coming to a conclusion, that’s the best option. That’s perhaps one reason why pathos is avoided in academic writing: because pathos has a tendency to pull on the heartstrings and make you forget logic.
So, argument can be used to develop an identity for both parties involved: those you are viewing and those that are being viewed. People liked Hitler, because he argued that people liked him; or at least, that’s what Leni Riefenstahl argued in the film she produced. At the same time, the visual and verbal arguments in the movie argued that Germans were united, and that everyone wanted the same thing. Using Riesman’s theory of the conforming self, people were other-directed, worrying about the needs of the other. But, by doing what everyone else was doing, the Germans were convinced that they were really looking out for themselves because the images they saw showed that being other-directed meant being prosperous.
In the end, I guess my point is that although it sometimes may seem easiest or the most logical to go with the flow, we need to step back, reevaluate why we are thinking the things we are thinking, and ask objectively whether the situation we are in really is for the best. It is easy to become brainwashed into thinking that something is the best option or the best way of doing things, but we should always balance our view with the opposing view and underlying reasons for their argument, and decide if we really do respect the side that we argue for. This is easier said than done, but it’s worth the fight.
Friday, October 30, 2009
What the other side may say: focus on students, not teachers
I just want to start out by saying that the following is not my position, but rather is a response to the following prompt provided by my Argumentative Writing teacher (I just don’t want you to think I am eternally confused and have completely changed my mind, especially if you compare this blog to prior entries).
"Figure out what the opposite claim would be to the paper you are working to write during class. For your blog readers, write a well‐supported, reasonable, and fair articulation of the OPPOSITE argument using the standard 5 paragraph essay format you used in high school or some variation of that format (4‐7 paragraphs, primary claim in the first paragraph, topic sentences articulating criteria/ reasons for support, etc..)"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Currently, the education system finds it necessary to focus on the needs of the students. We are constantly performing research to determine how different teaching techniques affect students, what the importance of student-teacher connection is for the student, and how it would be best to integrate more information into the curriculum to prepare students for their future in our fast paced society. If we don’t focus on the current students, the future will be grim. Therefore, we shouldn’t dedicate any funds to the professional development of teachers beyond learning new material to present to students. These teachers will either take the incentive to reach out to their students, or they won’t, and no amount of “emotion training” will help in this arena. Therefore, education reform needs to continue focusing on student’s learning needs and let teachers learn about emotions from experience.
One of the first reasons to not divert funds to teacher “emotion training” is that by doing so, you are taking funds away from students. After all, the education system is constantly being compromised as it is. Schools are constantly closing, students are getting bused further from home, and children often don’t even have the resources they need such as books. The system needs to find ways to generate more funds, but until then, we need to focus all efforts on our students.
Also, teacher emotion work is not something that we can train. There are way too many experiences that our teachers may experience in the field for us to truly be able to understand or determine which ones we should teach about. In some districts, teachers discuss how their 7th graders already have infants. In other situations, some kids are dealing with the difficulties of raising their siblings while their parents are at work. These are home situations that the students may discuss with their teachers, but there is no way for us to address all the different emotional stresses these students could bring to the class. Also, we could try to simulate experiences like these, but as we all know, simulations and role playing are never as helpful as real practice.
Additionally, by spending time on teacher emotion work, we would keep more teachers from getting out into the field because they would be spending more time in the class. As standards are currently set, teachers often need bachelor’s degrees, and if their degree isn’t in education, they need to take courses and/or exams to become certified. Currently, there is no way for us to increase the pay of teachers. Therefore, our prized members of society who may have been likely to enter the educational arena will avoid it if they think they are going to have to spend an excessive amount of time learning about how to teach. People like a profession that is quick to get into and pays well. Since we can’t change the latter, we definitely don’t want to make the former even worse. By adding more “emotion training” to the curriculum, we would make the teacher preparation process too long. This is not to mention the fact that we need teachers! There is a dire shortage in many states for teachers, and if we add more time to the programs, that means we won’t be able to get more teachers in the field for even more time.
Finally, we can develop learning practices that truly help students, and teacher training isn’t that necessary for. We can teach students many skills by having them work in small groups more often. This would encourage participation, and active engagement in their learning, and wouldn’t require any additional training of teachers. Also, we could dedicate more money to student counseling programs, something that would reduce the need of teachers to learn how to address students’ emotional needs because if we had an adequate system, teachers could just refer their students to the counselor. After all, we don’t have doctors who do the billing, appointment scheduling, and diagnosing; doctors decide what is worth their time and expertise, and teachers need to do the same.
In conclusion, there is not enough of a demand to start focusing on the emotional needs of our teachers. Currently, there is not enough funds to even think about how we can spend more money on teacher training. Also, although we agree that teachers need to be emotionally stable, skills of emotion work are something that are learned in the field, not something that we should be teaching in a classroom. Also, we have a shortage of teacher, and adding “emotion training” programs aren’t going to solve that need. Finally, emotion work is the job of the counselor, instruction is the job of teacher. Teachers need to do what they are good at: teaching; not counseling.
"Figure out what the opposite claim would be to the paper you are working to write during class. For your blog readers, write a well‐supported, reasonable, and fair articulation of the OPPOSITE argument using the standard 5 paragraph essay format you used in high school or some variation of that format (4‐7 paragraphs, primary claim in the first paragraph, topic sentences articulating criteria/ reasons for support, etc..)"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Currently, the education system finds it necessary to focus on the needs of the students. We are constantly performing research to determine how different teaching techniques affect students, what the importance of student-teacher connection is for the student, and how it would be best to integrate more information into the curriculum to prepare students for their future in our fast paced society. If we don’t focus on the current students, the future will be grim. Therefore, we shouldn’t dedicate any funds to the professional development of teachers beyond learning new material to present to students. These teachers will either take the incentive to reach out to their students, or they won’t, and no amount of “emotion training” will help in this arena. Therefore, education reform needs to continue focusing on student’s learning needs and let teachers learn about emotions from experience.
One of the first reasons to not divert funds to teacher “emotion training” is that by doing so, you are taking funds away from students. After all, the education system is constantly being compromised as it is. Schools are constantly closing, students are getting bused further from home, and children often don’t even have the resources they need such as books. The system needs to find ways to generate more funds, but until then, we need to focus all efforts on our students.
Also, teacher emotion work is not something that we can train. There are way too many experiences that our teachers may experience in the field for us to truly be able to understand or determine which ones we should teach about. In some districts, teachers discuss how their 7th graders already have infants. In other situations, some kids are dealing with the difficulties of raising their siblings while their parents are at work. These are home situations that the students may discuss with their teachers, but there is no way for us to address all the different emotional stresses these students could bring to the class. Also, we could try to simulate experiences like these, but as we all know, simulations and role playing are never as helpful as real practice.
Additionally, by spending time on teacher emotion work, we would keep more teachers from getting out into the field because they would be spending more time in the class. As standards are currently set, teachers often need bachelor’s degrees, and if their degree isn’t in education, they need to take courses and/or exams to become certified. Currently, there is no way for us to increase the pay of teachers. Therefore, our prized members of society who may have been likely to enter the educational arena will avoid it if they think they are going to have to spend an excessive amount of time learning about how to teach. People like a profession that is quick to get into and pays well. Since we can’t change the latter, we definitely don’t want to make the former even worse. By adding more “emotion training” to the curriculum, we would make the teacher preparation process too long. This is not to mention the fact that we need teachers! There is a dire shortage in many states for teachers, and if we add more time to the programs, that means we won’t be able to get more teachers in the field for even more time.
Finally, we can develop learning practices that truly help students, and teacher training isn’t that necessary for. We can teach students many skills by having them work in small groups more often. This would encourage participation, and active engagement in their learning, and wouldn’t require any additional training of teachers. Also, we could dedicate more money to student counseling programs, something that would reduce the need of teachers to learn how to address students’ emotional needs because if we had an adequate system, teachers could just refer their students to the counselor. After all, we don’t have doctors who do the billing, appointment scheduling, and diagnosing; doctors decide what is worth their time and expertise, and teachers need to do the same.
In conclusion, there is not enough of a demand to start focusing on the emotional needs of our teachers. Currently, there is not enough funds to even think about how we can spend more money on teacher training. Also, although we agree that teachers need to be emotionally stable, skills of emotion work are something that are learned in the field, not something that we should be teaching in a classroom. Also, we have a shortage of teacher, and adding “emotion training” programs aren’t going to solve that need. Finally, emotion work is the job of the counselor, instruction is the job of teacher. Teachers need to do what they are good at: teaching; not counseling.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
James's development of arguments on teacher identity: from arguing to inquire to arguing to convince
My first idea of the Hochschild concept was the limited one provided by Holstein & Gubrium. In this presentation of Hochschild’s theory, the authors explained that Hochschild believes that there are two components to identity: the true self and the false self. The true self is the self that would be revealed if not under any external pressures. Alternatively, a person can have many false selves and these are the identities that they present in multiple social situations would be those false selves. Hochschild claims that the false self performs emotion work, the act of presenting emotions that are completely opposite of what the person is truly feeling. Again, she claimed that these false emotions would have no effect on, or influence from, the true self. Hochschild’s theory was thought by Holstein and Gubrium (authors of The Self We Live By) to be important in preventing the true self from being inundated and overly influenced by the social. Other theories of the self, like Riesman’s conforming self, are more grim in that they see peoples’ identities as being completely shaped by the social, and that they don’t really have an identity beyond that which society creates for them. In contrast, Hochschild’s theory was seen as grim, but more positive than Riesman’s theory of the self because Hochschild’s theory said that there was a portion of identity that wasn’t subject to the pressures of the social. However, at least from my initial understanding of Hochschild’s theory, I felt that there was no interaction between the true and false selves.
Additionally, my initial concepts of teacher identity was that it was a direct representation of this concept of identity: that a teacher’s identity in the classroom had no influence on who they really were. However, as I have continued to contemplate these concepts, my opinion has changed. This has been influenced not only by my research for my Argumentative writing class, but also by my application/interview process for Teach for America. As I have learned more about the Hochschild type identity, I have found that there are conflicting views on the subject. Some people feel that the identity they present in the classroom is completely false and not representative of their true feelings. From sources other than the assigned text in our class, The Self We Live By, I found that Hochschild would call this surface acting. Other teachers profess that they also do “emotion work” . However, there are others that feel that they perform is more influenced by their true personality, and that they actively shape their current emotions by trying to change the emotions they are feeling, not just faking them. This is what Hochschild called deep acting.
Then, there are others who say that Hochschild’s emotion work and false selves at no level can truly apply to their profession. In the UK, they praise what they call philanthropic emotion work, an emotion work that is not exploitative at all, but truly loves what they do and don’t feel obliged to do their work. They feel that the only time they do Hochschild type work is when they are forced by the education system to follow a prescribed lesson plan and force all their class time into instruction, never being able to truly relate to their students. From this point, I started to see that when teachers do Hochschild work, they feel an emotional conflict, and often leave the profession or just feel overwhelmingly stressed. This made me think of the concept of teacher burnout, the idea that many teachers leave the profession shortly after starting, and as I believe some sources have cited, can occur at rates of 40% or higher in educators’ first 5 years in the profession. Other sources have actually determine that in large school districts, like in Chicago, the turnover of one teacher can cost about $18,000.
In my developmental psychology class, I have been reading about the importance of a safe learning environment, one in which the student feels comfortable, on the child’s development. The appropriateness of the material to their developmental stage (grade-level/age for instance) or personal traits (gender, culture, local community) is important in developing lesson plans. In my Teach for America application process, I read numerous article about how students are suffering from the short comings of the school system and how teachers need to stress improvement and do “assessment for learning,” a technique in which teachers show at-risk children with poor grades that their grades don’t show that the kids’ efforts are futile, but that they are just making minor mistakes or have minor shortcomings in their understanding, and then giving them the chance to improve. Therefore, I am constantly being inundated by the importance of the student. But, what about the teacher? Don’t they have needs to? And, if we want to teach students more properly, shouldn’t we first make sure that our educators are well adapted and prepared?
This is the point where I have transitioned to my “arguing to convince paper.” I always thought that it was important to worry about the needs of the students; however, if the teachers aren’t prepared for the situations they will encounter (not just the academic ones, but the emotional and psychological situations), how can they reach out to their students. Although some teachers don’t need what I would call “emotion training,” some do. And, this training is more important that some situations in contrast to others. For instance, in Teach for America, these corps members are placed in low-income communities. Some of these kids come from families where there parents work multiple jobs, and then the children must take the role of “parent” for their siblings. Others become parents extremely early. In blogs on teachfor.us, a site of Teach for America corps members’ blogs, one teacher mentioned how when she asked her 7th grade student about a picture of a baby boy he was holding, that the student told her that the picture was of his son! That’s right, a 7th grader with a son! How about the corps member who had to react to a student who talked about how good the popcorn was at the prison he had to visit where his brother is. Some of these kids don’t have any positive male role models because they have single moms, or their dad, uncles, etc. are in prison. Therefore, teachers need to be able to know how to properly respond to these kids emotional needs. But, if the teachers aren’t taught how to do this, they will shy away. Therefore, education reform needs to start focusing solely on the needs of the students, and instead focus on developing positive teacher emotions and identity.
If we can successfully help teachers prepare emotionally to connect with, and respond to their students in difficult situations, burnout rates may decrease. This not only helps the emotional state of the teacher, it would save the districts money by decreasing turnover rates! Also, when teachers don’t feel as stressed, they are less likely to miss work, and therefore don’t have to spend money on substitute teachers, who probably compromise students’ educational opportunities anyway in most cases. If people are worried about diverting money away from students needs, it seems from my arguments, at least, that by helping teachers, we will not only save the districts more money to spend on students, but it will help students connect with their material more and really learn, whether that means increased comprehension (what really matters) or just higher test scores (what the educational system emphasizes). In the end, I believe this is the direction that work on teacher identity research needs to take.
Additionally, my initial concepts of teacher identity was that it was a direct representation of this concept of identity: that a teacher’s identity in the classroom had no influence on who they really were. However, as I have continued to contemplate these concepts, my opinion has changed. This has been influenced not only by my research for my Argumentative writing class, but also by my application/interview process for Teach for America. As I have learned more about the Hochschild type identity, I have found that there are conflicting views on the subject. Some people feel that the identity they present in the classroom is completely false and not representative of their true feelings. From sources other than the assigned text in our class, The Self We Live By, I found that Hochschild would call this surface acting. Other teachers profess that they also do “emotion work” . However, there are others that feel that they perform is more influenced by their true personality, and that they actively shape their current emotions by trying to change the emotions they are feeling, not just faking them. This is what Hochschild called deep acting.
Then, there are others who say that Hochschild’s emotion work and false selves at no level can truly apply to their profession. In the UK, they praise what they call philanthropic emotion work, an emotion work that is not exploitative at all, but truly loves what they do and don’t feel obliged to do their work. They feel that the only time they do Hochschild type work is when they are forced by the education system to follow a prescribed lesson plan and force all their class time into instruction, never being able to truly relate to their students. From this point, I started to see that when teachers do Hochschild work, they feel an emotional conflict, and often leave the profession or just feel overwhelmingly stressed. This made me think of the concept of teacher burnout, the idea that many teachers leave the profession shortly after starting, and as I believe some sources have cited, can occur at rates of 40% or higher in educators’ first 5 years in the profession. Other sources have actually determine that in large school districts, like in Chicago, the turnover of one teacher can cost about $18,000.
In my developmental psychology class, I have been reading about the importance of a safe learning environment, one in which the student feels comfortable, on the child’s development. The appropriateness of the material to their developmental stage (grade-level/age for instance) or personal traits (gender, culture, local community) is important in developing lesson plans. In my Teach for America application process, I read numerous article about how students are suffering from the short comings of the school system and how teachers need to stress improvement and do “assessment for learning,” a technique in which teachers show at-risk children with poor grades that their grades don’t show that the kids’ efforts are futile, but that they are just making minor mistakes or have minor shortcomings in their understanding, and then giving them the chance to improve. Therefore, I am constantly being inundated by the importance of the student. But, what about the teacher? Don’t they have needs to? And, if we want to teach students more properly, shouldn’t we first make sure that our educators are well adapted and prepared?
This is the point where I have transitioned to my “arguing to convince paper.” I always thought that it was important to worry about the needs of the students; however, if the teachers aren’t prepared for the situations they will encounter (not just the academic ones, but the emotional and psychological situations), how can they reach out to their students. Although some teachers don’t need what I would call “emotion training,” some do. And, this training is more important that some situations in contrast to others. For instance, in Teach for America, these corps members are placed in low-income communities. Some of these kids come from families where there parents work multiple jobs, and then the children must take the role of “parent” for their siblings. Others become parents extremely early. In blogs on teachfor.us, a site of Teach for America corps members’ blogs, one teacher mentioned how when she asked her 7th grade student about a picture of a baby boy he was holding, that the student told her that the picture was of his son! That’s right, a 7th grader with a son! How about the corps member who had to react to a student who talked about how good the popcorn was at the prison he had to visit where his brother is. Some of these kids don’t have any positive male role models because they have single moms, or their dad, uncles, etc. are in prison. Therefore, teachers need to be able to know how to properly respond to these kids emotional needs. But, if the teachers aren’t taught how to do this, they will shy away. Therefore, education reform needs to start focusing solely on the needs of the students, and instead focus on developing positive teacher emotions and identity.
If we can successfully help teachers prepare emotionally to connect with, and respond to their students in difficult situations, burnout rates may decrease. This not only helps the emotional state of the teacher, it would save the districts money by decreasing turnover rates! Also, when teachers don’t feel as stressed, they are less likely to miss work, and therefore don’t have to spend money on substitute teachers, who probably compromise students’ educational opportunities anyway in most cases. If people are worried about diverting money away from students needs, it seems from my arguments, at least, that by helping teachers, we will not only save the districts more money to spend on students, but it will help students connect with their material more and really learn, whether that means increased comprehension (what really matters) or just higher test scores (what the educational system emphasizes). In the end, I believe this is the direction that work on teacher identity research needs to take.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Interviewing: Are you who you say you are?
So, this Monday, I did my final interview for Teach for America, also known as TFA (Brett, does an acronym count as nominalization?). Although I can’t actually disclose any of the questions that were asked or any of the details beyond those that TFA presents on its website, I must say that the overall format of interviews made me think about the identities of the interviewer and the interviewee.
Honestly, as I think most people who meet me already know, I am a quiet person, overall. However, there are some instances in which my persona changes and I try to be loud and outgoing, perhaps even authoritative at times. One of these instances would be when I lead study group. As a study group leader, I have to command attention and bring motivation to my members. When I do these things, it makes me wonder, is this outgoing nature just a different aspect of my personality? Or am I just completely faking who I am because the situation demands it? The more complications I see with theories of the self, the more I am confused about who I am. Because of Hochschild's theory of the self, I thought what I presented was a false self, but I'm not completely sure. But, getting to the point in time where I can actually say I'm a teacher, first requires that I interview to be offered a position as a teacher, as is the case with any other job.
During an interview, you would to repress some emotions and present false ones. One of the parts of my TFA interview was that I had to present a 5-minute teaching lesson for your fellow interviewees. When I did my 5-minute teacher lesson, I kind of thought that I had failed. The college students in the room seemed like they didn’t understand what I had just taught them, and they already had taken chemistry as high school students! How could I be an effective chemistry teacher to students who had never seen this material before if I couldn’t even reach college students. In this case, I felt a lot of emotional stress. But, was the emotional stress that I felt because I was repressing my emotions of nervousness so that the interviewers and other interviewees wouldn’t pick up on it, or was it just because of the fact that I was stressed. Am I perhaps reading too far into the emotions? Maybe it’s not the repression of emotions that’s painful, maybe it’s just the act of experiencing those emotions.
Not even discussing emotion work, Hochschild says that flight attendants and others in the service community present multiple false identities. But, after this interview, it made me think that maybe it’s not just the service industries or teaching that involves false identities, it’s almost every aspect of everyone’s life that involves these false presentations. When you interview, are you really yourself? I think the best answer to this is most often, “not if you want to get the job.” I often hear that the whole point of interviewing is so that the company can learn who you are. The same is true of the medical school application process. But, most people don’t really present who they are. I know many people who volunteer because they have to if they want to get into the medical profession, not because they want to. Then, they come up with scripted reasons of how volunteering touched them and why it is so important to help the community. Interviews don’t tell the interviewer who the person they are interviewing is; interviews tell these people how good you are at faking who you should be. Can you present a domineering self that can succeed in the classroom? Can you pretend like you really care about a patient, even though you may not?
I’m not saying that we are all heartless, don’t really care about other people, or that some of the things we say in interviews aren’t true, but they definitely don’t evaluate who we really are. The interview should be just another factor in the process. It seems that our personal recommendations should bear more weight, since they are written by people who supposedly actually know who we are. But then again, we choose who we want to write our letters. Have you ever gone to office hours to get help, and instead had to wait while some annoying person asked 80 ridiculously detailed questions, not because they really wanted to know the answers, but because they want the professor to think that they want to know the answers? Then, after we fake who we are to get the letters, and we fake who we are in the interview, if we get the job, we fake some more. Teachers do it, flight attendants, doctors, you name it. It seems like a kind of depressing concept to me the more I think about it; is there even such a thing as the true self, or are we always trying to fulfill roles? Perhaps there is a true self, but are the emotions we feel even from the true self, or are from another false self that society has made that we are trying to present? How can we ever know that the feelings that we feel are really ours? After all, what we define as our morals or our beliefs are often imposed by other people and other social constructs. Perhaps these complications are the reason why Hochschild said that at some point we present so many false selves that we lose the real self. When I first wrote my inquiry paper, I thought that the emotions I felt inside were from my true self, but now I’m starting to wonder if they really are mine, or are just what I think are mine.
I am also thinking more about the dramaturgic self. It seems that this whole concept of presenting a false self is really just acting and presenting false characters. Hochschild tried to look at the bright side of things and say that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that there is a true self though we have trouble finding it sometimes, yet she was in “The Dark Side” chapter. In The Self We Live By (TSWLB), Goffman (who described the self as dramaturgic and socially situated) is quoted as saying that the “self itself does not derive from its possessor, but from the whole scene of his action.” I have trouble seeing the difference between the self Goffman describes and the one Hochschild describes. Both theories say that we all have many selves, and that they all depend on the situation at hand. Is Goffman’s self in the “Formulating a Social Self” chapter while Hochschild’s self is in the “The Dark Side” chapter because Goffman thinks that each socially presented self is a reflection of an aspect of the self, while Hochschild’s false selves are completely fake? In TSWLB, the authors say that “Time and again, Goffman reveals that each and every one of us has many selves, pertinent to the purposes of daily living, always part of, yet also reflexively separate from, the moral orders we share with others.” So Goffman says that we have many selves, but they are not false? But, if they are meeting up to the expectations of the situation, and we are molding them to meet the demands of that situation, how is that not fake? Perhaps it is because I am now brainwashed by the ideas of Hochschild that I don’t understand how the selves we can present can be real selves. Alas, I am lost again in TSWLB. Tell me your thoughts :-D
Honestly, as I think most people who meet me already know, I am a quiet person, overall. However, there are some instances in which my persona changes and I try to be loud and outgoing, perhaps even authoritative at times. One of these instances would be when I lead study group. As a study group leader, I have to command attention and bring motivation to my members. When I do these things, it makes me wonder, is this outgoing nature just a different aspect of my personality? Or am I just completely faking who I am because the situation demands it? The more complications I see with theories of the self, the more I am confused about who I am. Because of Hochschild's theory of the self, I thought what I presented was a false self, but I'm not completely sure. But, getting to the point in time where I can actually say I'm a teacher, first requires that I interview to be offered a position as a teacher, as is the case with any other job.
During an interview, you would to repress some emotions and present false ones. One of the parts of my TFA interview was that I had to present a 5-minute teaching lesson for your fellow interviewees. When I did my 5-minute teacher lesson, I kind of thought that I had failed. The college students in the room seemed like they didn’t understand what I had just taught them, and they already had taken chemistry as high school students! How could I be an effective chemistry teacher to students who had never seen this material before if I couldn’t even reach college students. In this case, I felt a lot of emotional stress. But, was the emotional stress that I felt because I was repressing my emotions of nervousness so that the interviewers and other interviewees wouldn’t pick up on it, or was it just because of the fact that I was stressed. Am I perhaps reading too far into the emotions? Maybe it’s not the repression of emotions that’s painful, maybe it’s just the act of experiencing those emotions.
Not even discussing emotion work, Hochschild says that flight attendants and others in the service community present multiple false identities. But, after this interview, it made me think that maybe it’s not just the service industries or teaching that involves false identities, it’s almost every aspect of everyone’s life that involves these false presentations. When you interview, are you really yourself? I think the best answer to this is most often, “not if you want to get the job.” I often hear that the whole point of interviewing is so that the company can learn who you are. The same is true of the medical school application process. But, most people don’t really present who they are. I know many people who volunteer because they have to if they want to get into the medical profession, not because they want to. Then, they come up with scripted reasons of how volunteering touched them and why it is so important to help the community. Interviews don’t tell the interviewer who the person they are interviewing is; interviews tell these people how good you are at faking who you should be. Can you present a domineering self that can succeed in the classroom? Can you pretend like you really care about a patient, even though you may not?
I’m not saying that we are all heartless, don’t really care about other people, or that some of the things we say in interviews aren’t true, but they definitely don’t evaluate who we really are. The interview should be just another factor in the process. It seems that our personal recommendations should bear more weight, since they are written by people who supposedly actually know who we are. But then again, we choose who we want to write our letters. Have you ever gone to office hours to get help, and instead had to wait while some annoying person asked 80 ridiculously detailed questions, not because they really wanted to know the answers, but because they want the professor to think that they want to know the answers? Then, after we fake who we are to get the letters, and we fake who we are in the interview, if we get the job, we fake some more. Teachers do it, flight attendants, doctors, you name it. It seems like a kind of depressing concept to me the more I think about it; is there even such a thing as the true self, or are we always trying to fulfill roles? Perhaps there is a true self, but are the emotions we feel even from the true self, or are from another false self that society has made that we are trying to present? How can we ever know that the feelings that we feel are really ours? After all, what we define as our morals or our beliefs are often imposed by other people and other social constructs. Perhaps these complications are the reason why Hochschild said that at some point we present so many false selves that we lose the real self. When I first wrote my inquiry paper, I thought that the emotions I felt inside were from my true self, but now I’m starting to wonder if they really are mine, or are just what I think are mine.
I am also thinking more about the dramaturgic self. It seems that this whole concept of presenting a false self is really just acting and presenting false characters. Hochschild tried to look at the bright side of things and say that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that there is a true self though we have trouble finding it sometimes, yet she was in “The Dark Side” chapter. In The Self We Live By (TSWLB), Goffman (who described the self as dramaturgic and socially situated) is quoted as saying that the “self itself does not derive from its possessor, but from the whole scene of his action.” I have trouble seeing the difference between the self Goffman describes and the one Hochschild describes. Both theories say that we all have many selves, and that they all depend on the situation at hand. Is Goffman’s self in the “Formulating a Social Self” chapter while Hochschild’s self is in the “The Dark Side” chapter because Goffman thinks that each socially presented self is a reflection of an aspect of the self, while Hochschild’s false selves are completely fake? In TSWLB, the authors say that “Time and again, Goffman reveals that each and every one of us has many selves, pertinent to the purposes of daily living, always part of, yet also reflexively separate from, the moral orders we share with others.” So Goffman says that we have many selves, but they are not false? But, if they are meeting up to the expectations of the situation, and we are molding them to meet the demands of that situation, how is that not fake? Perhaps it is because I am now brainwashed by the ideas of Hochschild that I don’t understand how the selves we can present can be real selves. Alas, I am lost again in TSWLB. Tell me your thoughts :-D
Thursday, October 15, 2009
If I have to convince, what should I argue? And to who? With what reasons?
In my arguing to inquire paper, I tried to understand teacher identity. As a model, I tried to use Hochschild’s concept of the true and false selves, to see if her model really could relate to teachers. Some say no, not at all; others say yes, but with qualifiers. In the end, I came to conclude that, by and large, Hochschild’s ideas of true/false selves and emotion work do apply to teachers, just in different ways and to a different extent than it does in some of the service professions. Then, in the inquiry paper I also tried to look at how conflicts between the true and false selves, and the stress of performing emotion work/labor can be detrimental to a teacher’s true emotions and true self, and who this could contribute to teacher burnout rates, which in the U.S. are extraordinarily high, and in some districts where student drop out rates are high, teachers still “drop out” more often than students do. Perhaps we are not completely blind to this fact: after all, I have always wanted to teach, but knew that it would be emotionally challenging. This is one of the reasons that Teach for America appealed to me: I could leave after my two year commitment without having to look down at the ground and feel like a failure who succumbed to the stress of being a high school teacher, but instead could say I made a difference, and I didn’t leave because I couldn’t handle it, but because my time was up and it was time to move on.
So, that’s my background info. Hope you enjoyed it. I will probably first have to re-prove that teachers emotionally manage their emotions…can knock off a few of the required sources right there ;). Now onto the main point of this blog. What do I want to argue in my Arguing to Convince paper?
I think that I would like to argue that teacher education needs to perhaps stop focusing solely on the emotional management of students, but start working on building teacher identity so that new teachers don’t go into the profession and get burned out so quickly. I believe that if teacher training programs focus on emotions at all, it is probably about how to address a student’s emotional needs. Teachers are expected to be these amazing, philanthropic, hard-working people who are strong and don’t need emotional support: but if they are getting burned out, obviously they do!
If I made this argument, I believe my audience would be teacher educators or prospective teachers who don’t want to take even more time in the classroom and need to get out in the classroom. These people may argue that becoming a teacher already requires 4 years of education and that teachers can’t learn how to manage their emotions in the classroom, that they need to practice in the real world.
Or, perhaps I could argue that schools need to start focusing less on memorization and test scores and instead start focusing on real learning. With the No Child Left Behind act, schools now have to perform assessment tests much more often, and when schools don’t perform up to standards, they actually have to inform parents that they have the right to find a better school, or the school can even be closed down. This only adds to the stress of teachers, and as studies have shown, this blatant memorization of facts for performance exams actually jeopardizes the learning environment because kids aren’t learning critical thinking skills, they are learning how to memorize and pass tests (I would use my developmental psychology book and online articles I have for sources). I fear that this may be hard to tie into teacher identity, but maybe not (I do have some sources that link it it…read below about UK system).
In this case, I believe my audience would be those who develop laws and testing schedules and believe that the only way to assess student performance is by analyzing test scores. I would argue to them that these tests are not only bad for students’ learning since it inhibits them and makes those who are at the bottom of the scale feel inadequate and hopeless, but also that it makes teachers standardize classroom instruction, use fake emotion, become emotionally mismanaged, and hurts the teacher-student relationship.
Now, I don’t know much about the teacher education system, so I may find that programs in fact do work with emotion management and not letting the classroom psychologically injure the teacher’s self-concept. Therefore, this weekend for Fall Break, one of my objectives is to ask my cousin who has a Master’s degree in elementary school education what her training experiences have been. Has she been taught to emotionally manage the self, or just to manage the student? Does she think that such programs would be helpful? I believe she would be able to provide great insight into this topic.
Also, I think I would make the argument that if we want teachers to manage their students and make a lasting impact on the lives of their students that the teachers have to first be confident in their selves. After all, a teacher who is overwhelmed by their emotional conflicts will become disconnected from their class and not have much of a lasting impact on the students. For this argument, I have a source that states that when teachers in the UK switched from more philanthropic work to surface acting like Hochschild type work that they became disconnected, burnt out, and I believe it said that many ended up leaving the profession. This would be evidence that emotion management not only comes in many forms, but when teachers aren’t trained to properly manage their emotions in a changing classroom that teachers become disconnected, which means their students feel it too. Additionally, if I decided to argue that we need to stop stressing tests and start emphasizing learning, this article would definitely tie into that argument as well. This would be anecdotal evidence.
For one of my reasons that this argument is relevant, I would not only quote the statistics that say that teacher turnover is high, but cite the resources that show how expensive it is to keep replacing teachers when they leave (which kind of makes me question Teach for America (TFA), but since their turnover rates in low-income communities are similar to non-TFA teachers in the same regions, maybe they aren’t really hurting the system, although they may). In fact, I think it costs somewhere around $20,000 more for a teacher to be replaced than it is to keep the old teacher on staff. Why this is true, I’m not sure, but I think it’s worth exploring further. This would be expert opinion and hard evidence.
I do see some problems with my argument, like how can this be done? After all, is emotional management in the class something that can really be taught? For flight attendants, I think one of my articles explained that indeed it can be done. People in this profession are taught how to manage their emotions when others share anecdotes and ideas for emotional management. For instance, one of the research articles I read shared that in one flight attendant training program, a story of a flight attendant with an unruly, rude, irate customer kept their calm, but let that person “get to them.” They weren’t emotionally managing their self! However, that person found out at the end of the flight that the person’s son had just died and he was flying to his son’s funeral. Now that flight attendant always emotionally manages their self and doesn’t allow their true self to emotionally react to the situation because the person who is being rude to them may just be having a bad day. In low income communities, teachers may be able to do something similar, allowing themselves to say that maybe the student acts out in class because their parents don’t give them enough attention, not because the teacher is boring or ineffective. Through training programs where teacher would have to suppress their emotions and learn how harmful it can be, and learning to understand that everyone comes from a different background and may come from a stressed out family that isn’t supportive, warm, and loving that they shouldn’t take the comments or actions of their students personal, because they are not really directed at them per se, but more are inner directed feelings that the student can’t control anymore and must direct them at someone else to relieve their internal stress. Perhaps for my arguing paper I should just argue that teachers need to be taught emotion management though, and not how the system should teach them this. Perhaps the “how” should be left for the persuasive paper. What do you (YES, YOU, THE PERSON WHO IS READING THIS BLOGBrett will give you an imaginary smiley face sticker if you comment, I’m pretty sure… you should do it!) think?
So, that’s my background info. Hope you enjoyed it. I will probably first have to re-prove that teachers emotionally manage their emotions…can knock off a few of the required sources right there ;). Now onto the main point of this blog. What do I want to argue in my Arguing to Convince paper?
I think that I would like to argue that teacher education needs to perhaps stop focusing solely on the emotional management of students, but start working on building teacher identity so that new teachers don’t go into the profession and get burned out so quickly. I believe that if teacher training programs focus on emotions at all, it is probably about how to address a student’s emotional needs. Teachers are expected to be these amazing, philanthropic, hard-working people who are strong and don’t need emotional support: but if they are getting burned out, obviously they do!
If I made this argument, I believe my audience would be teacher educators or prospective teachers who don’t want to take even more time in the classroom and need to get out in the classroom. These people may argue that becoming a teacher already requires 4 years of education and that teachers can’t learn how to manage their emotions in the classroom, that they need to practice in the real world.
Or, perhaps I could argue that schools need to start focusing less on memorization and test scores and instead start focusing on real learning. With the No Child Left Behind act, schools now have to perform assessment tests much more often, and when schools don’t perform up to standards, they actually have to inform parents that they have the right to find a better school, or the school can even be closed down. This only adds to the stress of teachers, and as studies have shown, this blatant memorization of facts for performance exams actually jeopardizes the learning environment because kids aren’t learning critical thinking skills, they are learning how to memorize and pass tests (I would use my developmental psychology book and online articles I have for sources). I fear that this may be hard to tie into teacher identity, but maybe not (I do have some sources that link it it…read below about UK system).
In this case, I believe my audience would be those who develop laws and testing schedules and believe that the only way to assess student performance is by analyzing test scores. I would argue to them that these tests are not only bad for students’ learning since it inhibits them and makes those who are at the bottom of the scale feel inadequate and hopeless, but also that it makes teachers standardize classroom instruction, use fake emotion, become emotionally mismanaged, and hurts the teacher-student relationship.
Now, I don’t know much about the teacher education system, so I may find that programs in fact do work with emotion management and not letting the classroom psychologically injure the teacher’s self-concept. Therefore, this weekend for Fall Break, one of my objectives is to ask my cousin who has a Master’s degree in elementary school education what her training experiences have been. Has she been taught to emotionally manage the self, or just to manage the student? Does she think that such programs would be helpful? I believe she would be able to provide great insight into this topic.
Also, I think I would make the argument that if we want teachers to manage their students and make a lasting impact on the lives of their students that the teachers have to first be confident in their selves. After all, a teacher who is overwhelmed by their emotional conflicts will become disconnected from their class and not have much of a lasting impact on the students. For this argument, I have a source that states that when teachers in the UK switched from more philanthropic work to surface acting like Hochschild type work that they became disconnected, burnt out, and I believe it said that many ended up leaving the profession. This would be evidence that emotion management not only comes in many forms, but when teachers aren’t trained to properly manage their emotions in a changing classroom that teachers become disconnected, which means their students feel it too. Additionally, if I decided to argue that we need to stop stressing tests and start emphasizing learning, this article would definitely tie into that argument as well. This would be anecdotal evidence.
For one of my reasons that this argument is relevant, I would not only quote the statistics that say that teacher turnover is high, but cite the resources that show how expensive it is to keep replacing teachers when they leave (which kind of makes me question Teach for America (TFA), but since their turnover rates in low-income communities are similar to non-TFA teachers in the same regions, maybe they aren’t really hurting the system, although they may). In fact, I think it costs somewhere around $20,000 more for a teacher to be replaced than it is to keep the old teacher on staff. Why this is true, I’m not sure, but I think it’s worth exploring further. This would be expert opinion and hard evidence.
I do see some problems with my argument, like how can this be done? After all, is emotional management in the class something that can really be taught? For flight attendants, I think one of my articles explained that indeed it can be done. People in this profession are taught how to manage their emotions when others share anecdotes and ideas for emotional management. For instance, one of the research articles I read shared that in one flight attendant training program, a story of a flight attendant with an unruly, rude, irate customer kept their calm, but let that person “get to them.” They weren’t emotionally managing their self! However, that person found out at the end of the flight that the person’s son had just died and he was flying to his son’s funeral. Now that flight attendant always emotionally manages their self and doesn’t allow their true self to emotionally react to the situation because the person who is being rude to them may just be having a bad day. In low income communities, teachers may be able to do something similar, allowing themselves to say that maybe the student acts out in class because their parents don’t give them enough attention, not because the teacher is boring or ineffective. Through training programs where teacher would have to suppress their emotions and learn how harmful it can be, and learning to understand that everyone comes from a different background and may come from a stressed out family that isn’t supportive, warm, and loving that they shouldn’t take the comments or actions of their students personal, because they are not really directed at them per se, but more are inner directed feelings that the student can’t control anymore and must direct them at someone else to relieve their internal stress. Perhaps for my arguing paper I should just argue that teachers need to be taught emotion management though, and not how the system should teach them this. Perhaps the “how” should be left for the persuasive paper. What do you (YES, YOU, THE PERSON WHO IS READING THIS BLOGBrett will give you an imaginary smiley face sticker if you comment, I’m pretty sure… you should do it!) think?
First blog...yeah, not so good; but, it did have narrative slippage and narrative editing :D
For my English class, I was prompted to look back at my first blog, and then analyze it in terms of narrative slippage and narrative editing.
For those of you who don’t read The Selves We Live By, narrative slippage is when you relate to a broader context or group, but your individual story starts to “slip” from the group as a whole and has more influence on the writer’s individual experiences. For me, I could look at myself in terms of a student, but the way that I describe myself may not always seem particularly similar to that of most students; my particular context may vary from the norm. We stress different aspects of our live that have gotten us to a point, and even though we may reach the same goal or conclusion, we may significantly differ in the way that we view how and why we got there.
For narrative editing, we often step back, and reflect on what we have written or said, and then reexplain our thoughts or qualify what we were saying in order to elicit a particular reaction from the reader/listener. Our feelings, our reflections, and our ideas of who were are before, during, and after a conversation change and are often influenced by the listener, so we edit our story, and in turn, may edit who we are. Well, at least that’s my take on narrative slippage and editing.
So, now to look back at my blog. Wow, was it ever awful! I can now understand why if you read that blog, you would have stopped reading my posts. Upon reflection, it was a dry autobiography. I wanted my readers to respect me, so I gave my life history of all my accomplishments and the characteristics that I thought were most important. I believe that the nature of the blog was determined by my trying to accommodate to my audience, as well as due to the self reflection I was doing at that time while trying to write my letter of intent for Teach for America, which I believe was due the Friday of that week. I believed that anyone could be reading my blog, and although I wanted to relate to my fellow students, I knew that it was more likely that only the professor was going to regularly be reading my blogs, so I wanted to impress her. Therefore, I kept listing all my accomplishments, past jobs, and leadership roles from high school (which although I have been told before to stop dwelling on those high school attributes, I didn’t realize until now how pathetic it actually sounds to list off things from high school…that was four years ago, James; move on). Therefore, my story was a “constructed story” of the self more than a self in a story, I think.
So, Brett asked how did I “slip from the broader construction of the larger discursive practice of your group, be that defined by age, class, ethnicity, activity, dialect, etc.[?]” Um, I’m first of all going to admit that I never really fully understood this whole discursive practice vs. discourses in practice concept, but I’ll take a shot at answering the question anyway. In reference to my group as a college student, I think I slip a lot from that group. Most people emphasize the things that they have done in college, and not the things that go on a resume, but the things that actually make them who they are: their life experiences, their friendships, their engagements in activities, their self reflections. But, I slip from my group a lot. I focus on the things that I think my parents or my teachers or employers would want to see. I don’t feel that I have ever fully fit into my age group, always feeling able to better relate to those older than me, but impeded at the same time by my lack of life experiences.
I do often step out of my story and try to attend to perspectives and the way I want them to be heard, but I think I do this more in my conversation than I do in my writing. For some reason, I seem to think that I don’t need to explain my perspectives to the greater group at hand while I am writing; it’s like I know I am writing for others, but I feel like I don’t need to clarify things because I believe that what I say needs no clarification. Of course, that’s not really true. But, when I write I feel like I get into a different mindset than when I speak, and I think more about the things that I write than that I say, so that when I put them down on paper my ideas are clear and don’t need to be qualified for anyone else. However, in reflecting on my blog, I do step out of the story and attend to the way I expect people to take me. I said things like “Though long winded much of the time, I will try to be more concise in the future,” which you can obviously tell from my blogs turned out to not be true. I believe the second to last paragraph involved a lot of this narrative editing; it seems that I was finally speaking to the reader, and not listing my accomplishments for myself and my teacher. I also made comments like “I have volunteered at a soup kitchen and a food distribution plant for the poor in the ghettos of Detroit, volunteered last semester (and continue to do so again this semester) once a week from 10PM - 2AM at Arbor Hospice with patients during their last stages of life, and have volunteered in many other spheres…” Here, after listing my job and extracurricular accomplishments, I think I wanted to essentially show that I am not just a snob who brags about their job accomplishments, but wanted to show that I like to help people and serve the community, trying to make my listener look at me as a philanthropic person, not just an overachiever.
Anyway, analyzing the first blog is probably one of the first times that I have felt like I could actually understand what Holstein & Gubrium were saying in TSLWB in relation to my own life. I often feel like I analyze myself, but never in such a constructive view. So, with that, I say thanks, Brett!
Finally, I would like to note: Brett, the name that I go by is not David, despite you typing that in your comment. I know that you now know this, but I just wanted to point it out because it reminded me of how Lauren keeps harassing me about how I have 3 first names. Nevertheless, I always appreciate your feedback-->indeed, this comment may seem out of place and random, but that’s me, so deal with it :-P
For those of you who don’t read The Selves We Live By, narrative slippage is when you relate to a broader context or group, but your individual story starts to “slip” from the group as a whole and has more influence on the writer’s individual experiences. For me, I could look at myself in terms of a student, but the way that I describe myself may not always seem particularly similar to that of most students; my particular context may vary from the norm. We stress different aspects of our live that have gotten us to a point, and even though we may reach the same goal or conclusion, we may significantly differ in the way that we view how and why we got there.
For narrative editing, we often step back, and reflect on what we have written or said, and then reexplain our thoughts or qualify what we were saying in order to elicit a particular reaction from the reader/listener. Our feelings, our reflections, and our ideas of who were are before, during, and after a conversation change and are often influenced by the listener, so we edit our story, and in turn, may edit who we are. Well, at least that’s my take on narrative slippage and editing.
So, now to look back at my blog. Wow, was it ever awful! I can now understand why if you read that blog, you would have stopped reading my posts. Upon reflection, it was a dry autobiography. I wanted my readers to respect me, so I gave my life history of all my accomplishments and the characteristics that I thought were most important. I believe that the nature of the blog was determined by my trying to accommodate to my audience, as well as due to the self reflection I was doing at that time while trying to write my letter of intent for Teach for America, which I believe was due the Friday of that week. I believed that anyone could be reading my blog, and although I wanted to relate to my fellow students, I knew that it was more likely that only the professor was going to regularly be reading my blogs, so I wanted to impress her. Therefore, I kept listing all my accomplishments, past jobs, and leadership roles from high school (which although I have been told before to stop dwelling on those high school attributes, I didn’t realize until now how pathetic it actually sounds to list off things from high school…that was four years ago, James; move on). Therefore, my story was a “constructed story” of the self more than a self in a story, I think.
So, Brett asked how did I “slip from the broader construction of the larger discursive practice of your group, be that defined by age, class, ethnicity, activity, dialect, etc.[?]” Um, I’m first of all going to admit that I never really fully understood this whole discursive practice vs. discourses in practice concept, but I’ll take a shot at answering the question anyway. In reference to my group as a college student, I think I slip a lot from that group. Most people emphasize the things that they have done in college, and not the things that go on a resume, but the things that actually make them who they are: their life experiences, their friendships, their engagements in activities, their self reflections. But, I slip from my group a lot. I focus on the things that I think my parents or my teachers or employers would want to see. I don’t feel that I have ever fully fit into my age group, always feeling able to better relate to those older than me, but impeded at the same time by my lack of life experiences.
I do often step out of my story and try to attend to perspectives and the way I want them to be heard, but I think I do this more in my conversation than I do in my writing. For some reason, I seem to think that I don’t need to explain my perspectives to the greater group at hand while I am writing; it’s like I know I am writing for others, but I feel like I don’t need to clarify things because I believe that what I say needs no clarification. Of course, that’s not really true. But, when I write I feel like I get into a different mindset than when I speak, and I think more about the things that I write than that I say, so that when I put them down on paper my ideas are clear and don’t need to be qualified for anyone else. However, in reflecting on my blog, I do step out of the story and attend to the way I expect people to take me. I said things like “Though long winded much of the time, I will try to be more concise in the future,” which you can obviously tell from my blogs turned out to not be true. I believe the second to last paragraph involved a lot of this narrative editing; it seems that I was finally speaking to the reader, and not listing my accomplishments for myself and my teacher. I also made comments like “I have volunteered at a soup kitchen and a food distribution plant for the poor in the ghettos of Detroit, volunteered last semester (and continue to do so again this semester) once a week from 10PM - 2AM at Arbor Hospice with patients during their last stages of life, and have volunteered in many other spheres…” Here, after listing my job and extracurricular accomplishments, I think I wanted to essentially show that I am not just a snob who brags about their job accomplishments, but wanted to show that I like to help people and serve the community, trying to make my listener look at me as a philanthropic person, not just an overachiever.
Anyway, analyzing the first blog is probably one of the first times that I have felt like I could actually understand what Holstein & Gubrium were saying in TSLWB in relation to my own life. I often feel like I analyze myself, but never in such a constructive view. So, with that, I say thanks, Brett!
Finally, I would like to note: Brett, the name that I go by is not David, despite you typing that in your comment. I know that you now know this, but I just wanted to point it out because it reminded me of how Lauren keeps harassing me about how I have 3 first names. Nevertheless, I always appreciate your feedback-->indeed, this comment may seem out of place and random, but that’s me, so deal with it :-P
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)